The Sound of 007

Whilst I found the Sound of 007 to be fascinating, insightful and compelling as a James Bond fan, and as a fan of all the music scores and theme songs from the past 60 years, it didn't completely satisfy my thirst for wanting to know about the musical origins of all the Bond films.

The works of John Barry and David Arnold are quite rightly covered in detail and celebrated as being most influential on the franchise but it didn't cover the lesser contributions of Bill Conti, Michael Kamen and Eric Serra. These were ominously overlooked and I really wanted to know more about these scores, or maybe that is just the completist coming out in me, but either way I felt it was a missed opportunity to make this a definitive documentary about the Bond music film by film. They could easily have stretched out the running time to 2 hours instead of 88 minutes by giving more even coverage to every film.

The Timothy Dalton era is almost completed omitted. Why were there no contributions from A-Ha or Gladys Knight? Even John Barry doesn't mention his score for The Living Daylights. Apart from that shortfall it is still worth a watch as there were many stories and facts I hadn't heard before from the many talented writers, performers and producers who created them.

John Barry wrote the most iconic music score in film history. Film and music have had an important integration that predates "talkies" when the only sound that came out were the musical scores played to fill the silence. Music sets the tone of films and amplifies the emotion of the scene, and has done so forever in movies. Try watching a film where the music score is eliminated and the difference is often startling.

No score is more identifiable than that composed and orchestrated by John Barry, who penned the immediately identifiable James Bond 007 theme. All one has to hear are the first handful of bass string electric guitar notes played to recognize it's the James Bond 007 movie theme. No other song is more connected to film.

'The Sound of 007" is the story behind how it all happened, and the amazing journey of artists and other composers, songs and performances involved over 60 YEARS!

Truly a worthwhile film to see, this is by a wide margin the best documentary on the subject, and a must-see for everyone interested in film and music arts.

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It was an interesting documentary worth watching. I did think that they spent a little too much time on No Time to Die. It Is a fun watch overall that reminds you that there have been a lot of great songs that came out of the James Bond franchise. Sometimes you forget that songs came from these movies and it is nice to be reminded of them and hear some stories behind them. My biggest criticism would be that they barely mentioned Chris Cornell who did a great job on Casino Royal which I found disrespectful given that he's passed away. Overall though it was worth watching for any James Bond fan, movie fan, or music fan.

This and it's accompanying 007 Live at what I think was the Albert Hall have just appeared this weekend on Amazon Prime. The documentary is good however there's a bit too much Billie Eilish for my liking. Why she has so much screen time is beyond me, unless it's to try and appeal to the young. The focus tends to be on the themes of the Bond movies, less so on the scores which I would argue is more important. There is probably more time spent on the newer Bond movies as well which I wasn't keen on. It was interesting that LTJ Bukem appeared as he was one of the dance music artists involved with a remix project, which was never even mentioned. There are a few surprises straight out if the mouths of some of the biggest names associated with the franchise in terms of artist choice for theme songs etc. There are even sizable contributions from artist I either didn't know did a Bond song or had completely forgotten about. Jack White anybody? I certainly didn't know Lulu was ever involved. It's certainly worth watching and isn't too trainspotter-ish in terms of the musical discussions.

There is an accompanying live concert which was shot I believe on the 4th of October with a mix of new and older artists. Also on Prime. The newcomers struggled with the songs, Celeste who appears in the documentary seems to sing out of key while Paloma Faith sounds like she's doing a bad Tina Turner impression for karaoke. Also no Adele in this show. After watching the documentary you will likely find yourself clicking on the link for the live show, not a bad way to round off the evening but you won't miss much if you give the concert a miss.

It touches upon the songs and the themes and covers a lot of the franchise, but it does give too much attention to No Time To Die and skips over some of the more interesting things. Credit to John Barry and David Arnold is definitely given, but entire bits dedicated to Amy Winehouse who almost wrote a theme and not a word about Chris Cornell's brilliant work on Casino Royale other than Rami Malek mentioning him as a favorite. I would have also loved some mention about John Barry's swan song score, Living Daylights where his orchestral and brass arrangements of aHa's theme are some of the best music of the entire franchise. The Dalton era is basically skipped over entirely. Amusing bit of Sam Smith saying he wrote his song in 20 mins and recorded it 20 mins later and given how crappy that song was, you could really believe him. Def worth a watch. Interviews with Shirley Bassey are a treat.