James bond movies have over the years become a British institution, outlasting both the cold war and a-ha! They represent an older time, and are movies filled with misogyny, violence and black/white morality, Bond starting out as an anti-hero in his earlier films, but by Diamonds Are Forever, a total dickhead. But anyways, the films tend to have quite apt music (apart from the previously mentioned film with a diamond orientation), and so this record was a total no-brainer. Filled with music from the first five films, Side A has Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger, while Side B continues with Goldfinger, then features Thunderball and You Only Live Twice.
Doctor No opens up with the now legendary James Bond Theme, brass band meets surf guitar, it's as catchy as ever, and is a very masculine sound, really suiting the character, especially when it gets louder, and the brass really kicks in jazz style. After it ends, we get Kingston Calypso, a gentle island strumming and percussion, with flute leading us into three blind mice in a pre-reggae style, instantly creating a Caribbean atmosphere. The jazzy guitar solo is nice and smooth, rolling through the ears, and this naive sound works well in the film, playing over an assassination. The track fades out, and we get treated to Under The Mango Tree, a simple island style song, sung by Diana Coupland, Monty Norman's wife at the time. It has the familiar naive island theme, a sweet lyrical about love. It's hard to separate the song from the moment in the film where Ursella Andress comes up from the beach, and why would we want to?
We're now onto From Russia With Love, track one is the catchily titled Opening Titles-James Bond Is Back-From Russia With Love-James Bond Is Back. It opens with a harsh sudden horn blast, taking us into the smooth silky romantic melody of From Russia With Love, the violin plays with our silky ears oh so sweet, and then it melts into the James Bond theme and ends with a sudden flare of horn. The second track from this movie is The Golden Horn, a gypsy themed track, introducing with a percussion loop that keeps going, and bringing us on with a playful upbeat repeating melody, loosing it's gypsy edge a bit and becoming more traditional, but still keeping the same melody. The next track is simply titled 007, a timpani beat followed by horn and drum, the brass and string kicks in, this is the signiture action scene used in most of the seventies Bond films, a nice hint of menace and adventure and romance in the melody, like a European version of the old wild west themes. We also get a nice call and response bit between the brass and string sections. Bond has the edge, and is on the winning team.
Now we're onto the Goldfinger section, opening up with Golden Girl, a haunting melody which pens up with some creeping bass notes punctuated with brass hits and multi-instrument swells. It's got the really strong sense of danger, and builds the tension up with it's irregular structure, Bond's out of luck for sure. The final track is Oddjob's Pressing Engagement, a reprise of the main Bond Theme, mixed in with the big brassy punch of the Goldfinger theme, which just hits the right note for an action-packed sound, and fades into a nice tense section, before punching back up again. The Goldfinger melody on it's own is really inspired, but how it melts with the Bond theme here is just class, and forms a perfect end to the first side of the record. Bond Back In Action Again kicks off the second side of the record and finishes off the Goldfinger section whilst providing a brilliant way to kick start tthe final half of the album. The Bond theme takes on a more tense edge, as Bond's clearly up to some work here, playing with the main Bond rhythm with some neat brass flourishes and espionage sounds.
Thunderball opens up with... Thunderball! Starting kinda jazzy, it takes us quickly into romantic schmaltz zone, with some not-at-all-subtle strings, the brass further accentuates this, while the background rhythm plays with notions of the Bond theme and the Thunderball theme at time, it is all submerged under the main music and the cocktail lounge piano meandering over the top. This really is jazz-lite and doesn't have the strength or convictions of previous tracks so far, choosing to live in the world of Muzak. Ewwww. The second Thunderball track is Death Of Fiona, a caribbean rhythm and simplistic brass melody take us into the track, unusually upbeat for a deathsong, the percussion gets louder and louder before prettymuch overtaking the main music, then suddenly the track gets violent and we see why it's a death song, harsh stabs at strings and brass and a heavy beat before returning to the bland main melody. Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is the final Thunderball track, action, menace, loud brass hits, all are here! This combines Bond action music with jazz-lite, as the melody from the previous track makes a return, ruining the tension which was built up during the intro of the track. Later Bond movies would have a more successful jazz (and even funk) element to their background music.
The final movie on the record is You Only Live Twice, starting with Fight At Kobe Dock-Helga, which has some really good menacing sounds, keeping with Bond music tradition, the rhythm takes an influence from sixties beat music, while the main melody keeps with the Bond standards. The track punctuates with brass or string hits. The next track is Mountains And Sunsets, again, kinda tense, with some romantic strings layered over the top, and the main melody appearing. There's this faux-eastern sound to it, due to the film being set in Japan, but with random jazz trumpet, kinda weakens it. It's a schmaltzy track. The album ends with Bond Adverts World War Three, which is a pretty dramatic title! starting with the main You Only Live Twice melody with flourishes of harp and vaguely eastern sounding instruments, this continues the schmaltz before going all sinister, keeping a quiet melody plodding on, before the drama kicks in. The main melody is now sounding more menacing, a fake schmaltz. All in all, it's a soft track to end the record on, but after it ends, we get the Bond theme making a reappearance, the track hasn't ended! the drama kicks in! Bond is running out of luck, and has to fight as the brass hits start up, and the strings are suitably menacing! The track builds up to a big splash and brings a menacing spacey melody into play, building up the tension, we feel like we're nearing WW3, but then the track ends after the build-up and we're done.
All in all, it's a good listen, I enjoy listening to it when reading. It's by no means a must-have but a proper curiosity, and does deserve a place in your collection.
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