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It's a very competent score by Barry but it remains, along with OP, my least favorite of his offerings. The very 80s guitar flourishes may have something to do with that, I suspect.
The soundtrack stands out for me because the main track for the action scenes (PTS, end fight and... where else??) Is one of my favourites in the franchise and the calmer moments (Stacey drives over the Golden Gate Bridge) or Wine with Stacey (romantic) are beautiful.
And then there is the almost heroic hymn when Bond goes down the ladder with Stacey over his shoulders. What a feast for my ears.
Is this score a bit more guitar driven than others? This could also be a reason why I love it a lot.
I think AVTAK's action theme is a candidate for his best, and I appreciate the fact it gets such substantially varied renditions as opposed to other action themes in Barry scores. Snow Job introduces the theme; the version heard during the fight at Stacey's house adds that section with brass triplets that's reminiscent of Thunderball's Chateau Flight; He's Dangerous introduces that terrific, suspenseful B-section with the horns and trills; and Golden Gate Fight flat out changes the melody for something completely different!
I also love Airship to Silicon Valley, especially that ominous phrase heard at 31 seconds and again at 1:25.
The last minute or so of May Day Bombs Out is remarkably powerful.
And I like that sinister brass motif heard at the beginning of Bond Escapes Roller. Speaking of that track, those woodwinds heard from 0:20 onwards are brilliant. So desolate, and they even sound like breathing or gasping for air.
I also like the return to a classic idea, turning source music into dramatic underscore, as heard when Aubergine is killed. It's a lovely piece of music without the suspenseful strings.
Another cue I enjoy that I know has big fans is the arrival at the chateau. Twenty seconds of perfection. And a lesser known one I love is the one heard in the briefing scene with M, Q and the Minister. Brilliant chord progression there.
This score has relatively little time for the Bond theme but I love the rendition in May Day Jumps. A nice, subtle variation on the Octopussy version.
At the moment, GF is my favorite early Barry score, and AVTAK is my favorite later Barry score.
That one had escaped my mind, but you're right, it's a brief but great little fanfare. There's something both pastoral and a bit grand, perhaps even regal about it. As with the intro to Paris music, it feels reminiscent of Barry's Until September.
But it is true that there are several Barry scores with more variation than AVTAK and may be more interesting to listen to.
It's not among my top favorites of the score, but I like that piece. Part of it has a five-note ostinato played on harp and strings, I think. It sounds like a ticking clock, which is appropriate because it is indeed scoring the bomb countdown. And with the brass chords in the background it sounds like doomsday is upon us. And then on top of that you get some Bondian trumpet phrases.
And the other main idea of that piece is an eight-note phrase played on low woodwinds, brass and piano. It recurs in another cue that plays when Bond and May Day fight each other before falling into the water. I like the horns and trumpets that play on top of that version. The music really sells the fact this is a serious yet exciting moment, even if it turns out to be brief, as the flooding of the mine interrupts the struggle.
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I also like the fact they scored the scene with Bond following Stacey to her house with the AVTAK theme in a pleasant, pastoral rendition. It seems obvious to me to score it that way in hindsight, but I don't know if it was that obvious looking at the unscored film.
But for me, perhaps nothing in the score beats a piece I and others mentioned in an earlier post, that is, the music that scores the fight at Stacey's house, specifically the part toward the end. The phrase played on brass is repeated each time on a higher octave --a classic Barry trick-- and it sounds so exciting; you can really feel the music is building toward something.
In at number 2, and our silver medalist:
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE
Music composed by
JOHN BARRY
Barry's YOLT grabs the silver medal, unsurprisingly so since it also received the most individual silver medals as well: eight.
YOLT also obtained three golds and one bronze medal. Additionally one 4th and two 5th places were awarded to it.
Five more top 10's were counted. It should be noted that YOLT ended up in everyone's top 15, except on one occasion: a 17th place. That's the highest lowest score of them all.
In total YOLT's original music received 185 points.
That brings us to this contest's winner. Realising a third victory in a row, after Best 007 Film, Best Bond Girl, now it also grabs Best 007 Score, our gold medalist:
ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE
Music composed by
JOHN BARRY
With nine 1st places, more than any other entry, OHMSS was always going to be difficult to beat.
Furthermore, it received four 2nd places, one 3rd place, four 4th places and two 5th places. That's an impressive total of twenty members who gave a top 5 spot to OHMSS.
Only three members rated it outside the top 5, though two of them gave it a top 10 and top 15 respectively: a 9th spot and a 14th spot. One member did not include OHMSS in his/her top 20, giving our winner a 21st spot.
In total though OHMSS's original music obtained 197 points.
Our podium
GOLD: On Her Majesty's Secret Service
SILVER: You Only Live Twice
BRONZE: A View to a Kill
I was quite surprised that I could not find an Award show nomination for any of these three scores.
Their triumph in this contest however, awarded by our distinguished Mi6 Academy members, makes up for that of course ;)
Thanks all for participating, it's been fun!
Cheers,
GG
First of all, I would've been pleased either way, since both scores are truly epic. I could proceed by dissecting them, highlighting every great moment, but then I'd be summing up literally every single track in Barry's outstanding compositions.
What makes both guaranteed winners is not just the fact that Barry does amazing things, but that he does them all the time; that he wrote not one or two but several centerpieces for each film, and that they all added layer upon layer upon layer of beauty to these films. The only weak spots aren't Barry's doing, namely using the Bond Theme in a rough and unsubtle mix during the Little Nellie fight and the raid on Piz Gloria.
@GoldenGun, thank you so much as usual! This is the one I've had the most fun with by far. It's been a fairly emotional ride too, especially with LALD pushing several of the Barry scores aside like a boss, which, to this day, I find absolutely appalling. ;-) But what a delightful journey you have hosted for us once again. Please don't hesitate to bring us more of these "contests"!
Thank you.
Excellent top three. You can easily hear, John Barry at his best in those scores.
This was my ranking of the scores...
1. You Only Live Twice
2. A View To A Kill
3. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
4. Casino Royale (2006)
5. Moonraker
6. Octopussy
7. Goldfinger
8. Tomorrow Never Dies
9. From Russia With Love
10. Diamonds Are Forever
11. Casino Royale (1967)
12. The Living Daylights
13. The Spy Who Loved Me
14. The Man With The Golden Gun
15. Live And Let Die
16. Skyfall
17. The World Is Not Enough
18. Die Another Day
19. Thunderball
20. For Your Eyes Only
21. Licence To Kill
22. GoldenEye
23. Dr.No
24. Quantum Of Solace
25. Spectre
26. Never Say Never Again
Can you get more exotic than with YOLT, though? I seem to recall reading somewhere that Barry had broken new ground with this score, that it was essentially the first time a Western composer had incorporated Japanese flavours in his music.
I'm also curious about what you mean by "simplistic", @Quantum_of_Tomorrow. I can't think of too many Bond scores that are more layered, rich and complex.
As for OHMSS, it reigns supreme and came in at #1 for me as well. It's perfection through and through, opening to close. Hell, on a technical level, that film crushes so many other installments in countless ways.
Fantastic round, everyone, that was very fun. Like the last couple, it was nice seeing a few of mine line up with others while having a couple that didn't seem to meet the opinions of everyone else. Can't wait for the next one, @GoldenGun, thank you so much.
I enjoyed this contest. I found MI6's dearth of love for David Arnold disturbing as usual, but them's the breaks. ;)
I did think either TND or CR would likely make it into the top 10, but I was pleasantly surprised QoS proved Arnold's most popular here.
Fun game all around, @GoldenGun. Can't wait to prepare my ranking for the next one!
Wikipedia says Barry thought, understandably, it would be hard to compose a theme song using the words On Her Majesty's Secret Service, so director Peter Hunt agreed it could be instrumental, of course unusual for the series.
The site filmmusicnotes says, with new Bond Lazenby, Barry felt his role with the music was "to make the audience forget that they don’t have Sean. What I did was to overemphasize everything that I'd done in the first few movies, just go over the top to try and make the soundtrack strong. To do Bondian beyond Bondian." One way to help achieve that was, in the scene in Bond's flat, to use bits of themes from previous Bond films. And when Bond is taken to see Draco, the guy sweeping the floor whistles the "Goldfinger" tune.
A bit of trivia: the woman who sang the song "Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown?", Nina van Pallandt, later had an acting role in the film American Gigolo as Richard Gere's "manager". @GoldenGun, thanks for your excellent work tallying the points and your awesome presentation of the scores!
I have YOLT and OHMSS flipped in my rankings compared to the group voting, largely to do with the haunting, gorgeous, and timeless theme song and its integration in YOLT's score. That said, OHMSS is a bolder and more diverse score (synths, Armstrong, and Nina all on one album!) so a very worthy winner of this tournament.
YOLT at #2 for me as well, with OHMSS at #4..
Looking forward to the next games!
Then again, who'd have thought LALD could beat some of Barry's aweso--okay okay, I'm over it! Leave me alone. ;-)
Excellent choice, sir! :-D
On these two last scores I'll just say, very briefly, the following:
My absolute favorite cue of the YOLT score is in the track James Bond in Japan, from 6:48 to 8:41.
Probably my favorite pieces of the OHMSS score are Bond Settles In and Dusk at Piz Gloria. That and the gunbarrel music. The brass in that usually sounds pretty energetic, but this time they seem to have gotten an extra injection of adrenaline into the vein.