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James Bond Soundtracks 1970 to 1989
1962 to 1969 /
1995 to Today
The 70's and 80's were rough on Bond fans. They switched composers every other film and even started switching Bonds! There were times we thought they had lost their minds - J.W. Pepper, Jaws, All Time High, Beach Boys music...what were they thinking? As the films got sillier we found ourselves hoping for just a good scene or two. Likewise with the soundtracks.
John Barry was back with an nice, atmospheric score for "Diamonds Are Forever" (1971).
George Martin stepped in for "Live And Let Die" (1973). It had the famous Paul McCartney theme (We know what Mr. Bond thought of him, don't we?), and was a great score to introduce Roger Moore to the role.
- La La Land Records has put out remastered and expanded 2-CD sets for "Diamonds Are Forever", "Live and Let Die", "The Man with the Golden Gun", "Moonraker", "Octopussy, "Never Say Never Again" and "Licence to Kill", making them the ones to get.
- B. J. Arnau (from the Filet of Soul restaurant in the film) released a "Live And Let Die" single on RCA produced by George Martin and not included on any of the CDs.
Barry returned with his his magic touch for "The Man With The Golden Gun" (1974) (the one with the slide-flute) and a title theme performed by Lulu.
Marvin Hamlish gave us an entertaining score for "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977). The title song sung by Carly Simon was a big hit, but the scores disco roots are showing.
John Barry returned again for an easy listening "Moonraker" (1979),
Bill Conti scored "For Your Eyes Only" (1981). (The re-mastered EMI CD has extra tracks not included on the LP),
and Mr. Barry stuck around for three films in a row this time! "Octopussy" (1983) has had a few different releases, but as usual the most complete is on the LA LA LAND Label.
"Never Say Never Again" (1983), got Mr. Connery back in bondage, but as it was another production company, couldn't use the Bond music we were accustomed to. Michel Legrand's score was not quite what one would hope, but then neither was the movie.
Mr. Barry was definitely back! ... in our good graces after we heard the score to "A View To A Kill" (1985) with a theme performed by Duran Duran.
"The Living Daylights"(1987) was John Barry's final Bond score. Mr. Dalton did not disappoint and it was great to have Barry's music backing him up. They got another pop group, A-ha, to perform the theme. Completists will want to find their 45 of the theme minus the vocals on the B side. Two more songs, "Where Has Everybody Gone" and "If There Was A Man" are performed by the Pretenders. "Where Has Everybody Gone" has some of that good old Bond sound we'd been missing, but was only heard through the bad guys earphones!
Michael Kamen was brought in to score "Licence To Kill" (1989). If nothing else, he should be remembered for bringing an electric guitar back to the Vic Flick Bond riff instead of those strings we'd been listening to. This would be Mr. Dalton's farewell performance and our farewell to 007 for six years while the producers were tied up in court. They slipped a couple of songs in again. None of them very Bond-like. "If You Asked Me To", performed by Patti Labelle was nice and better than the Celine Dion version that got air-play. The other ones were a waste of CD space...
- Note:If you poke around on the Official Michael Kamen Website you can find four short unreleased tracks from "Licence To Kill" (1989)
That was the end of 007 for a while, but James Bond would return...