Category: Music

Today, in honor of the opening of the newest 007 film, I’m indulging in that most rare of experiences — the themed Friday Music entry! Today’s items are all Spy music — from Bond films, and from other sources.

To kick things off — here’s an absolute smoker of a lounge ballad from the 1966 spy film The Silencers, which was one of Dean Martin’s portrayals of Matt Helm — and, like the majority of the Bond films, it bore no resemblance to the Helm novels on which it was based. Hell, Dean Martin didn’t even really act like anything other than Dean Martin. The producers did make an interesting choice, however — despite having Martin at their disposal, they gave the film’s theme to Vikki Carr. She purred out the following: Vikki Carr – “The Silencers.”

As the producers of the Bond films were prepping their second movie, From Russia With Love, they weren’t sure if they were going to be able to use the James Bond theme that they had made popular in the first film. Credited to Monty Norman, it had actually been composed by John Barry, and performed by Monty Norman’s Orchestra. There was some legal wrangling over the credit (eventually resolved, as the writing credit now reads “Monty Norman & John Barry”). So, as a potential stopgap measure, they asked John Barry to come up with an alternate theme. He did, and this has been used several times in multiple Bond films as a result. Whereas I prefer the plucky guitars of the main theme, the rousing heroic horns of this piece is admittedly very cool – John Barry – “007.”

Sticking with Bond for a while: I’m a sucker for Bond themes. Everybody knows the big ones: Shirley Bassey belting out “Goldfinger.” Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does It Better.” Sheena Easton’s “For Your Eyes Only.” The thing is, though, I haven’t heard a Bond theme that I didn’t like, at least a little bit — that includes clunkers like Madonna’s “Die Another Day” and Shirley Bassey’s “Moonraker.” Those are films where the film is much better than the theme, but I still like them. On the opposite end of the spectrum are Bond films where the film is considered one of the lesser Bonds, but the theme is fantastic — and, as such, these are often the music that gets overlooked. Here are three GREAT themes from “lesser” Bond movies:

Shirley Bassey – “Diamonds Are Forever.” The first of the 70s Bond, not only featuring the beginning of the slide into goofy comedy, but a very tired and old-looking Sean Connery. Ironic that he looked better in 1983’s Never Say Never Again (the unofficial Bond film, created due to a legal mess that I won’t get into here) than he did in his last official outing.

a-ha – “The Living Daylights.” They wanted a hot single to follow-up the success of Duran Duran’s “View to Kill.” The problem is that by the time this film came out, a-ha had shown themselves to be a flash in the pan, and a nearly 2-year-old flash, at that. Great theme, though, and one of my favorite films, despite the Dalton-haters out there.

Gladys Knight – “License to Kill.” Dalton’s second and final film, crippled by budget cuts. It was originally supposed to be set in China (and filmed there), dealing with an Opium warlord. Slashed budgets resulted in a fictional South American country, and a drug dealer left over from casting sessions for Miami Vice.. Bond didn’t come back for 6 years, after this clunker. (Actually, this was due to legal in-fighting among the production companies — but it certainly didn’t help the taste that this film leaves in your mouth.) Absolutely amazing song, though.

There have been a few good Spy TV shows — among the best of recent efforts is JJ Abrams pre-Lost effort, ALIAS. Here’s a track from the pilot, which is essentially an extended mix of what would become the theme song of the show — and, interesting enough, was composed by Abrams himself, who is a musician as well as a writer and director. JJ Abrams – “Garage Fight.”

One of the pieces of music used by the show during its first season — an absolutely tone-perfect bit of spybreak electronica by a trip-hop group: Supreme Beings of Leisure – “Under the Gun.”

“Spybreak” is the term that got applied to that style of electronica — groovy lounge sounds, plucky guitar, and generally theme-appropriate to espionage fiction. The Propellerheads (one of my favorite electronic acts, as readers well know) composed a track which used that name as the title — which was famously used as the music in the lobby shoot-out in “The Matrix.” The Propellerheads – “Spybreak!”

The Thievery Corporation is another downtempo/spybreak act. They haven’t been used in any spy film soundtracks — so they didn’t wait to be picked. They released an album, “The Mirror Conspiracy”, which is the soundtrack to a film that doesn’t exist. That’s the conceit of the concept album — that it’s a soundtrack to a film of that name. A Spy film, in fact. Here’s a track from the album: The Thievery Corporation – “Lebanese Blonde.”

The Bourne films, based (loosely) on the Robert Ludlum novels, are shaping up into a fairly nifty spy franchise, and a nice bit of work for Matt Damon. Here’s a track that was used in the first film (“The Bourne Identity”), which appeared again in the second (“The Bourne Supremacy”>, so it’s being used, essentially, as Bourne’s theme: Moby – “Extreme Ways.”

Lastly, here’s my favorite rendition of one of the more famous pieces of spy music – the theme from “Mission Impossible.” This modernized version was created by two members of U2 for the first of the MI films: Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton – “Mission Impossible.”

Transmission Ends.

Wow. Friday already.

Sophia Coppola’s Marie Antionette with Kirsten Dunst was released at the end of October. I haven’t seen it, but I did pick up the two-disc soundtrack, which is chock full of New Wave goodness. The juxtaposition of 18th-century France and 1980s music works really, really well — for example, listen to how the album begins: Siouxsie & The Banshees – “Hong Kong Garden.”

One of the coolest things to come out of Japan in a long while is Shibua-Kei music. Literally “Shibuya style” and named for the trendy Tokyo shopping district, Shibuya-Kei is a sort of lounge electronica, mixing digital production with a burt-bacharach-esque groove and a laid-back hipster vibe. Artists famous for this style include Pizzicato Five and Hi-Posi, among others. I recently picked up a couple of Shibuya-Kei collections (“Sushi 3003” and “Sushi 4004”). Here’s the lead track from the first: SP1200 Productions – “My Super Lover.”

In France, meanwhile, they’re producing some great stuff as well. This is an absolutely brilliant French pop song from Emma Daumas. The title of the song means “elsewhere.” Emma Daumas – “Ailleurs.”

We’ll continue with the international tour, with an Icelanding group that produces what they call “crunk electro house” — a mix of the techno-glitter of dance music with the down-and-dirty “crunk” scene. It is, oddly enough, two great tastes that taste great together. This is a nasty grinding monster of a song, and I love it (although be warned that the lyrics are not safe for work): Steed Lord – “Dirty Mutha.”

Back in the early-to-mid 90s, there were a lot of collaborations between alternative and hip-hop artists, as they realized, in the words of Ice-T, you could “put all the pissed-off white kids and the pissed-off black kids in the same room, and they’d realize they were pissed off at the same shit.” This is one of my favorites from that period. Hip-hop act Onyx tried to introduce the mosh pit to hip-hop, and worked with Biohazard on this remix: Onyx and Biohazard – “Slam.”

I used to be a HUGE fan of U2…and in fact, their first 4 albums (“Boy”, “October”, “War” and “The Unforgettable Fire”) are among my most favorite albums of all time….but then they went all Arena-rock Massive on me. I still enjoy them, but I’m much more a fan of hungry-garage-band-new-wave U2 than I am of international-super-group U2. That said, they’ve got a new best-of collection coming out (yes, again), which features a new single, which is pretty nifty. Very much in the “Beautiful Day” sweeping anthem mode….which means, ironically, that they sound like they’re trying to emulate Coldplay, a band which more often then not emulates U2 themselves. U2 – “Window In The Skies.”

Lastly, here’s a really nice bit of uptempo electronica. I don’t know much about the group — the track comes from a collection of artists from the indie electronic label, Moodgadget. The Hexx – “Revista Moda.”

There you go, kids. Enjoy.

Here you go, people — another weekly mixtape.

The forthcoming release of Casino Royale has had me thinking Bondian thoughts, which of course makes me think of music. I’m pleased as hell that David Arnold is doing the score to this film, since I’ve loved all of his work….and I’m especially chuffed that he co-wrote the theme. It always makes much more sense when the phrases of the theme music can be worked throughout the score. Here’s an example of something that pissed me off on that front — David Arnold did the score for Tomorrow Never Dies — and he worked the score through with phrases from the theme he wrote. Of course, the suits at the studio decided that his choice for the vocalist wasn’t commercial enough, so they gave the theme duties to Sheryl Crow, who wrote her own theme, which had nothing to do with the score. The song was pathetic. David’s composition, sung by kd lang, was squeezed in as an end-credits song. I mean, fer chrissakes…..listen to this! It’s like she’s channeling Shirley Bassey, circa 1965. kd lang – “Surrender.”

Sometimes, having a theme separate from the score is a good thing, though….as evidenced by the absolutely AWFUL score for Goldeneye by Eric Serra. So bad that that the studio added music after the fact (including the traditional Bond theme, which Serra bizarrely didn’t use at all), and this brilliant theme song by Tina Turner, written by Bono and The Edge from U2: Tina Turner – “Goldeneye.” Needless to say, Serra wasn’t hired to do another Bond film.

On a slightly related theme (by band and song name only), here’s some nifty cool spybreak electronica from Thunderball – “Domino.”

Enough Bondage for now.

Industrial electronica veterans Front Line Assembly have a new album out, Artificial Solder, which I’ve been listening to quite a bit recently. Great stuff. Check out this track: Front Line Assembly – “Low Life.”

It’s very cool to see alternative hip hop move further and further away from the heavy bling and fuzztronica sound of the commercial stuff, and more towards jazz. This is a new track from Gumbo, the latest album by New Orleans-based Voice, who lays her vocals over a live band that is damn near riffing straight bebop jazz. This track is funky as hell, and I really like it: Voice – “Know Rhythm”

Here’s some more international hip hop for , from Mexico’s Control Machete (of “Si Senor” fame): Control Machete – “Andamos Armados”

Here’s some 70s glam for fans of the genre — my favorite track from the 1974 film Phantom of the Paradise. This is the “frankenstein creation” stage show sequence introducing the new rock star, Beef. The Undead – “Somebody Super Like You.”

Lastly, here’s a new artist I discovered this week — a Swedish woman who goes by the name Robyn. The song is a nice breakup ballad, elevated by some really nice synth and strings work. Robyn – “With Every Heartbeat.”

Hope you liked ’em.