Fun article on NPR (via BD) on James Bond movie title music over the decades. Yes, it’s been 42 years of Bond films, and the evolution and maintenance of the Bond music and title sequence tradition continues with the next flick, Casino Royale, opening Friday.
I’ve got a number of albums that have these tunes, and I enjoy them all, even the cheesy ones (yes, The Man with the Golden Gun has lyrics that give innuendo a whole new name, but they’re still rather clever, and it’s probably the weakest Bond movie in the canon) and the nonsense ones (yes, a-ha’s The Living Daylights lyrics have nothing to do with the movie or the characters therein, but Barry’s talented interweaving of the tune into the rest of the movie demonstrated one of his great
strengths as a Bond composer).
Oddly enough, no mention of the infamous John Barry/Monty Norman legal battle over who wrote the famous Bond theme (the courts finally decided on Norman).
Good stuff.