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9 out of 10 times I'd be the same (my vinyl of Tangerine Dream's score for Thief is in severe danger of combusting if I play it any more than I do!). But something about that style in a Bond film just didn't click with me.
Still though, as with almost all of the scores, there are highlights that would make fine additions to any compilation album. I'd say it's probably a great Conti score, even if I don't find it a great Bond score.
My favorite part of the film as well, along with the rest of the Berlin segment that follows. If the whole film had been of the same quality, my thoughts on CR67 would be very different.
GE tends to get justifiably ragged on for some of Serra's quirkier and more experimental cues (most notably "Ladies First" in the film and for a few others that very fortunately didn't make the cut, "A Pleasant Drive in St. Petersburg" chief among them). But the better parts of GE, which form the bulk of the score ("The GoldenEye Overture," "Run, Shoot, and Jump," "Whispering Statues," "We Share the Same Passions," Bond's arrival in St. Petersburg, the destruction of the Tiger, John Altman's score for the tank chase), are really quite outstanding. As a whole, it's a score that's stronger than its reputation, and while there are "off" moments, Serra came up with an incredibly new and fresh sound for Bond and the perfect sound for GE—eerily industrial echoes, those electronic wah-wah-wahhhs, and who would have thought the Bond theme would work so well on timpani? GE actually narrowly missed my top 10. I do think it will turn up relatively soon in this ranking, but as I mentioned earlier the score does have its fans.
For my money, one of the best and most inventive cues in the score, and perhaps in any Bond film. I love the piano chords that accompany the camera shot that introduces the ski ramp. And the later piano/synth part that scores the ski jump itself (well, both jumps). I believe I've said this before elsewhere, but the mood it conveys is really interesting and unique-- I can't quite find the words to describe it. It's a signature moment of the score for me.
It would have been another cracking score, I'm sure. Barry being so good at conveying melancholia through his music, he would've zeroed in on Melina's loss of her parents particularly well.
In terms of zaniness --or whatever we might call a deviation from the expected "Bond sound"-- I do draw a line between Conti's music style and, say, Michel Legrand's. They both step away from the Barry template of Bond music (as anyone who isn't him understandably does to some extent), but Conti gets it right, in part because he serves the onscreen action correctly. He creates excitement and drama, though admittedly in a markedly different flavor from Barry. I keep coming back to that bike chase music in NSNA and thinking about how it doesn't work for me compared to Conti's work.
Anyway, I suspect most people's dissatisfaction from the FYEO score stems more from the action music than the low-key moments.
Stylistically, do you think that FYEO is closer to the musical template laid out by Barry? I must say even with the disco synths of TSWLM, I feel its action scoring has a more quintessentially Bondian sound. But Conti, while further away from that sound than Hamlisch, wins me over because he beats Hamlisch in terms of sheer energy and excitement, and as I said before, Conti doesn't cross the line into Legrand territory.
So I prefer FYEO to TSWLM as well.
For me, there's so much good Bond music that even a low-ranking score can hold great value.
Oh absolutely. Those first three I mentioned ("Runaway," "Submarine," and "Ski...Shoot...Jump") are not only my favorites from FYEO but three of my favorites from the series as a whole. But while I love "Runaway" for its energy and its wildly swinging notes of danger and triumph and "Submarine" for its brazen grooves, my love for "Ski...Shoot...Jump" is more difficult to put into words. As you say, it's an incredibly unique bit of music. It goes on for a good five minutes and covers a great deal of musical territory within that time. I have no idea how Conti landed on that particular sound as it really is so very different from any other part of the score, but it's absolutely perfect for the scene it accompanies.
That's a good question. I don't think either one is particularly close to Barry's style. With the exception of "Ice Chase" in The Living Daylights, Barry kept his action music more melodic and more theme-driven in contrast to Hamlisch's "You Should Be Dancing"—sorry, "Bond '77"—or Conti's disco, synth, and cowbell fueled tracks. Both FYEO and TSWLM feature lush, sweeping variations on the main theme, which is a very Barry thing, but unlike Barry's orchestrations, I can think of instances in both FYEO and TSWLM where the love themes turn a bit schmaltzy or go over-the-top (Bond and Anya on the train, for instance). I think a comparison could be drawn between the thundering tanker music in TSWLM and the ominous grandeur of Barry's "Capsule in Space," but again it's a question of subtlety. The tanker music has always struck me as more fitting for a Godzilla film.
Stylistically, I do think Hamlisch was closer to Barry than Conti. But as remarkable and as perfect as Barry's scores were, I don't think they should be regarded as a template for other Bond composers to emulate. Comparisons can be made between Arnold's romantic cues and the Barry sound—Barry of course was a tremendous influence upon Arnold, and if you look at his earliest works (Last of the Dogmen, Stargate) you'll see much more of the Barry influence there than in his Bonds—but apart from Arnold's love themes, I really don't see much similarity at all between him and Barry. And I don't think composers do need to sound like Barry or to follow the template found in his scores. I love seeing innovation in the sound of Bond. Bring on more in the mold of Martin or Serra or Kamen or even Newman and the unique musical identity he brought to Skyfall. Hopefully Zimmer will join that list of innovators soon enough.
Yes, indeed. There are moments to enjoy in all of them. We have been spoiled to not only have so many fantastic scores but to also have a great variety of composers and styles to boot. It's all a matter of preference and that's what makes this so fun. Agreed with your points on FYEO as well. A truly underrated score it would seem.
I like The Tanker, but it's no match for Capsule, that's for sure. It's epic in scale but has less dramatic power. It's a bit more shallow.
Considering something like Eric Serra's GoldenEye was, in my view, a musical success and fitting for the film, there is certainly room for innovation. Though I'll always have a soft spot for a Barryesque score. I like Barry's unwavering emphasis on melody, not only in his Bond scores but elsewhere too. And his music style is so associated with Bond, to the point of forming the basis for musical parodies, that it's interesting to use it as a reference point and analyze how the other composers stick to it or deviate from it, with varying results.
I agree about David Arnold. He is an example of a composer who incorporates some of Barry's signature touches, but can have a fairly different style beyond that. His approach to action scoring is completely different. I think even some of his love themes aren't too Barryesque. City of Lovers, the ski music in TWINE and the music in the last scene of DAD are among the closest to his style. But the love themes of TND and TWINE I find quite different-- lovely in their way, especially the latter, but different. And that's fine. And QoS is an even more substantial departure music-wise.
I'm excited about Zimmer not because I'm a big fan of the guy --though I enjoy some of his scores-- but because I haven't heard a single note of music of the new film; I don't even know if there's anything out there. So I'm looking forward to finding out what he came up with when I watch the film, and not before. Music right along the images for maximum impact.
When FYEO came out in the theaters, it was the first Bond film that made me a real Bond fan. When the ski and bobsled chase started and Runaway kicked in, I was hooked! Seeing Bond on skis on a bobsled track was pretty exciting and suspenseful: "how's he going to get out of this?" Another track I absolutely love is Cortina, where we hear kind of an ode to nature as Bond drives up, and then it changes as the spy goes out on the balcony to survey the scene with the mountains in the background, and again when he goes back in to get the message on the mirror. And Conti nicely adds Greek accents here and there, like in Unfinished Business. Another reason why I rank this higher than a lot of other Bond scores is that, to me, Conti's is much more memorable.
Listening to a few more tracks: to my mind, I daresay Sinking the St. Georges, The Climb and Goodbye Countess sound much like Barry might've done them.
GOLDENEYE
Music composed by
ÉRIC SERRA
Nine bottom 5's were noted, out of which two 25th places were GE's worst ratings. Three more members placed it outside the top 20.
Despite all that, there are also those who like/love Serra's electronic sound. One gold medal, one 6th place, one 10th place, two 11th places, one 12th place and one 14th place were awarded to it, giving it seven top 15 notifications.
The original music for GE ended up with 86 points.
On a sidenote, apparently Éric Serra was awarded a BMI Film Award for this film's soundtrack.
What matters most to me is that GE is one of my favourite Bond films and the score doesn't take away any of the joy I'm having with Pierce's best. In fact, this is perhaps the only Bond film that I think, somewhat controversially, couldn't have been scored by John Barry.
Adore the man's sound. So obviously putting my favourite composer's sound in a 007 jacket, would turn out to be my favourite score. GE was the first album I bought and has remained my favourite ever since.
I'm also convinced GE would not have been such a good film with more traditional music, since it's already somewhat of a boxticker, which would have made it a bit pastiche.
Obviously GE's 1st place was my doing. With FYEO in 3rd, I'm clearly a fan of the non-traditional scores, even though I love the Barry ones as well. Variety is the spice of life, as they say.
It's also, just not an enjoyable score for me. Which is why it comes in it 22 for me.
yes, I think The Antenna was a strong track too, along with the opening gunbarrel and PTS. Apart from that, it's largely forgettable.
I actually like all the music here that has the typical GE sound of timpani and chanting and industrial sounds. That's all fantastic. Like Pierce Brosnan himself, this score is frequently brilliant, but also often forgets what kind of movie it's in and leans hard into mawkish melodrama. Everything Serra did with strings is crap. The Severnaya Suite, We Share the Same Passions...no idea what he was thinking there. I've never seen Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor, but this music sounds like what I'd expect from something like that.
Love The Goldeneye Overture though, and most of the other rhythmic stuff. I don't even mind Ladies First.
Interesting to note that my two least favorites, this and DN, are the only known cases of the filmmakers intervening in what they knew to be a bad score.
Irvin Kershner with NSNA would be the third. Legrand was not his choice of composer and he ended up shuffling music around where it doesn't belong.
Actually, some of GE's tracks are Leon cues that were unused.
Honestly, I was expecting at least a spot or two lower for this, so as one of its (albeit slightly more reluctant nowadays) defenders, I'm pleasantly surprised to see that it lasted this long. It seems like the reception to it is becoming fairer over time (this score used to get TRASHED by the community).
I had it at #10, although it was RIGHT before my GoldenEye rewatch and... yeah, I'd probably put it around #12 or #13 now. I evaluate these scores primarily based on what's in the film itself, so I don't really count Serra's tank chase against it that much, though it's certainly a weak piece and docks a point or two from it, though those points are more than regained by Altman's replacement. "Ladies First" is endlessly mocked for good reason and EASILY the worst piece of music here (and pretty low ranking among the series as a whole, though not QUITE a bottom feeder as I'd even put a few of the main theme songs below it, nevermind some embarrassing musical cues from other entries). It's not even that the piece itself is badly arranged or anything, I think it's actually "performed" well (I'm pretty sure everything in it is just a synth except for the Primus-esque guitar), it's just wildly out of place in a Bond film. I mean, it'd maybe get a pass in The Man with the Golden Gun or something.
But a piece I never really had an issue with before or even paid much attention to stood out to me as also being pretty weak, although it's mercifully short. I don't think it's even on the score's album. It's when Bond is swimming in his hotel or whatever in St. Petersburg and Xenia walks past him, right to when he throws her into the sauna. It's got this weird, modal fretless bass line and just sounds so quirky and out of place. I know Serra likes to use fretless bass and likes to move in and out of the scale like that, and usually it works to great effect, but it's just such a weird line and essentially the "melody" of the piece. It hampered my experience with the score and, to an extent, the film this time around.
Still, this has some exceptional work in it which I think got unfairly overlooked in the past by the score's naysayers rather than being evaluated in a balanced way. "The GoldenEye Overture" is one of the best pieces in the entire series. "The Severnaya Suite" is unendingly gorgeous, and the way it plays in the film is really powerful. The timing of its climax with Natalya successfully escaping the dish is cathartic even after dozens of viewings of the film. "Run, Shoot, and Jump" is also one of the better action cues in the series. I love the off time of its string melody. I also think this has got to have one of the five or six best gunbarrel musical cues, if not even closer to the top than that. I also adore the little piece that plays as Bond arrives in Russia and meets Jack Wade, which I also can't find on the soundtrack. It's very short, but it just feels SO Bond. It's a wonderful update of the kind of incidental piece Barry would create once he got out of the habit of using the Bond theme itself for scene transitions.
The theme song is gorgeous, although it's a little slow and, because the intro is truncated in the movie, there's a little less buildup and then once those horns explode, the song has almost already peaked. It only really goes bigger during the bridge, and then sort of just continues on until it plays out. Tina Turner does a great job (when doesn't she?) and honestly I'm really glad that U2 didn't just perform it themselves as I think she suits it far better than Bono. I mean this woman was nearly 60 and performs the song like she's in her 30s. She's a treasure. I just don't find myself going for this theme song very often when I want to hear a Bond song, and as a result it ranks just about dead center for me, I think.
I also love how the trailer music (which is an iconic piece of Bond music despite never being used in a film) is apparently on the soundtrack? I don't own a physical copy of this one, but it is in the tracklist on YouTube. It's a kickass piece of music and rightly beloved by Bond fans and also reused in a bunch of other marketing (I don't think any of us here can hear the opening string swell and not hear "through the power of a breakthrough digital process..." in our heads).
Overall, I'm more mixed on this one than I was before (in the past this would've been threatening top 5 territory for me), but I still consider myself a fan of it and I welcome the (moderate) reappraisal it's gotten from the fandom at large.
P.S. Oh, yeah, I forgot... I think The Experience of Love is great! Really stupid decision to put anything other than the Bond theme over the end credits after more than a half decade of no Bond films (although now after four films in a row of the SAME recording of the Bond theme over the end credits, I'm on the verge of wanting the opposite for NTtD), but it's a beautiful song.
Not a Barry fan, eh? ;)