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There's no other Bond score I'd rather listen to on a quiet evening than TB.
Stylistically and arrangement wise, it's The Ipcress File's twin brother and you can tell by first listen they were composed the same year.
When I put on one of them, I usually follow up with the other. Just incredible works by Barry.
And my #1 pick, Thunderball, has two unbelievably great songs that both get used, but that's a particularly interesting case as, where the other films are widely known to have the aforementioned extra songs attached to them, not to mention the songs themselves actually appearing in their respective movies, I think general audiences have no idea that "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is a thing that exists, and as a result you get these incredible cues that almost sound like Barry pulled them from the heavens.
We have an interesting top 19 remaining: all 11 Barrys, all 5 Arnolds, Martin, Hamlisch, and Kamen. After Hamlisch and my bottom two Barrys go out, I won’t be overly concerned about how the rest of the list shakes down.
Here’s what I think numbers 19-12 will be:
FRWL
TMWTGG
TSWLM
OP
LTK
TWINE
DAD
QOS
Not that I think those are the next eight that should go, but I think they will be the next eight to go.
I have a strong feeling that the three gentlemen in the above picture will factor into one of the higher ranked soundtracks to come.
(Hal David also co-wrote “The Look of Love” for CR’67).
I'd be fine with a third Newman score. I'd even be cool with a second Serra, if he'd cut the cheesy orchestral stuff.
Same here.
THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH
Music composed by
DAVID ARNOLD
The first of the Arnold scores to leave the tournament, TWINE received seven bottom 5's, though five of those were 22nd spots. TWINE's lowest finish was a single 25th spot.
TWINE also collected some top 10 placements: one 5th place, one 7th place and one 10th place. Additionally it ended up 11th,12th and 15th, each on one occasion.
TWINE's original music received 89 points in total. That's the same amount as SF, but it had one more top 10 rating so it won the toss-up.
Peculiar sidenote, TWINE is the only entry that ended up at the same place as its chronological release date: 19th.
THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH
Music composed by
DAVID ARNOLD
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I agree with all of this. For me, Arnold's best efforts are TWINE and QOS, TND sits in the middle and his weaker efforts are DAD and CR imo.
As for TWINE, as you said, there are many great tunes to pick from. I love this score.
Only drawback here is basically a drawback for most of his Bond scores: some messy and chaotic action cues here or there, noticeable for this particular film in Caviar Factory and Submarine.
There's certainly a lot going on in both "Caviar Factory" and "Submarine," and while "chaotic" might be a word I'd use to describe them I find them "chaotic" in a good way. There is a kind of overwhelming and delirious quality to both, but that's what I love about them. "Caviar Factory" has those wonderful ominous brass notes that come in to signal the approach of the choppers, cool techno beats, and plenty of playful musical "winks." "Submarine" is just a surreal 10 minutes of incrementally building suspense and action, reaching a thrilling climax with those great Bondian trumpets. I love every moment of it.
Come In 007, Your Time Is Up is outstanding.
Generally, I think the score does a lot of heavy lifting in terms of generating excitement when Apted's direction left a bit to be desired. The submarine sequence is an example of that.
One aspect of the discussion could be how well a soundtrack stands on its own for listening, as opposed to how well it supports the visuals on screen, in a supportive manner. The ideal of course is for both of these to be true. So I think the music supports TWINE but I would never listen to it on its own.
On Skyfall I will echo the appreciation for New Digs. I like how in the first half of the track, a four-note phrase (first played on bass and violins) hints at the chromatic vamp of the Bond theme, it's very cool. And in the second half, the violins and violas also have a slyness to them that is reminiscent of the Bond theme. Bondian without actually quoting the theme itself.
I don't about anyone else but I prefer Old Dog, New Tricks to Close Shave. The latter gets a little too cutesy for my taste, despite having an elegant sound. The former is more seductive; I enjoy the chord progression too.
I really like the final part of Breadcrumbs, how Newman plays with the rhythm of the Bond theme in those short violin notes.
I also like Kill Them First. It sounds quite fierce between those strings and the sinister brass chords.
A Batman-like quality to the music has already been point out in the past regarding Jellyfish. The beginning of She's Mine also sounds like the Zimmer motif from the Nolan Batman films.
But I prefer Spectre to Skyfall. It's not that I feel the music style is substantially different between them; I just think the second time around, Newman happened to land on motifs and melodies that appeal more to me within the same style. But his overall style of scoring and orchestrating is not quite for me, I must say. Generally, when he scores action scenes with those fast-paced string notes, he loses me.
Interesting observation, the one I bolded. I was wondering if you could give some specific examples of moments you don't like. The horns at the middle of The Moors, perhaps?
I agree with this, especially the bolded part.
Those themes have a great deal to do with my high appreciation for Thunderball. Incredibly sensuous melodies. Many people often herald OHMSS as the pinnacle of Bond music, even Barry himself said "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.” But I feel Thunderball gets closer to that ideal in some respects.
Overwhelming and delirious-- right on point with that observation. For me, it's great fun in the case of Caviar Factory. For Submarine, a bit less because I feel the music becomes rambling in places, but for instance, I do enjoy the brassy music that plays when Bond enters the control room of the submarine and holds everyone at gunpoint.
TND and TWINE are my favorite Arnold scores because as I stated before, I'm a sucker for the classic Bond sound. I love Elektra's Theme; it goes so well with that bed scene. I also like how the three-note phrase that opens the title song reappears throughout the score, especially in Access Denied.
I agree, it's not my bag. (The fact that DAD will rank higher than TWINE, that is.)
@GoldenGun, I was going to suggest you wrote the ranking number of the score on each reveal post, because unless I missed it, it wasn't there in a few previous entries so I didn't know what number we were on. But I see it's there on the TWINE post. Perhaps at the end the full list could be added to the first post for reference purposes.
Now, for my controversial opinion : I find Arnold's output to be the weakest (by far) of all the Eon films. However, that doesn't mean I think he's terrible. There are moments to enjoy in all of his scores and even a few tracks that Barry himself would be proud of. But it seems that too often he strays into generic or run of the mill territory that just isn't very memorable or leave a lasting impression.
Just my opinion of course and I'm glad he has his fans. In the end, I'm thankful for his contributions to the series but I'm not pining for his return.
I love Arnold for his highlights, but I can see where you're coming from with the "generic or run of the mill territory that just isn't very memorable or leave a lasting impression." I love one or two of his film soundtracks a lot but realized, while ranking these, just how many I had forgotten or couldn't think of because there's nothing really outstanding or memorable about them.
I also quite like it but find it to be easily his weakest effort all the same.
I find it at least better than CR. Interesting, I prefer the bombastic scores to the really stripped down ones. It's a blast from start to finish.
It's just the electronics that bring it down for me. The film mixes have a lot of that stuff toned down or removed completely (the car chase inside the ice palace is an example) and it sounds much, much better to my ears.
That's true. Similar to the TND score, the action noises and explosions sometimes blot out the score which can be annoying.