Bond Themes - do you have a favourite?

There are lots of iconic movie themes which have filtered into our everyday awareness. I notice on the classical radio station that I listen to that Ennio Morricone and John Williams and Michael Nyman, all film music composers of note, are mixed in with Mozart, Bach, Elgar, Grieg and Mussorgsky.

Is there anything more iconic than a Bond theme tune? When I think back to the days of John Barry's Thunderball and Goldfinger, there was a feeling that these could never be topped.

And then came Carly Simon and Nobody Does It Better and Wings' Live and Let Die and it was clear that whilst the film trope might remain the same, the music would move on, although still retaining the same power. Maybe a different layered sound with less stress on wind instruments and the big band sound but still one that was distinctive in how it conveyed the danger and the action of the films.

There's an argument to say that Bond music lost its way a little in the 1980s with Duran Duran and A-ha, the pop of the day not having the punch musically that reflected the fast-paced scenes of our hero saving the world again. Perhaps this watering down went with the Bonds themselves, going from Roger Moore to Timothy Dalton stepping into the brogues of international espionage. Personally, I liked Timothy Dalton but I was still reeling from seeing him as Mr Rochester.

With regards to A-ha and Duran Duran, I like them both. I like the snappy rhythm of The Living Daylights and the "Hey, driver, where you going?" line that Morten Harket delivers a little more huskily than usual. That Fatal Kiss which is the B-side (young ones, look it up) of A View to a Kill is a beautiful piece of orchestral music which reflects the music of the main theme but is more gentle, a tune for a languorous Midsummer evening, fragrant, with summer blossom drifting down as you embrace your lover...

Perhaps Harket and Le Bon are just not so vocally powerful as Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones and it is this that makes them seem weaker?

Exit eighties' boy bands and we reach into the Pierce Brosnan age of Tina and Gloria and then further to the truly modern period of Madonna, Garbage, and my favourite, which I will not name just yet. I really like Garbage as a band - I'm only happy when it rains is such a great tune! - but I felt like The World is Not Enough just wasn't enough. Same with Madonna and Sheryl Crow, both of whom I respect and love as artistes but as Bond theme singers, they just don't do it. It feels almost disloyal to say it. Sorry, girls.

And then! And then! Daniel Craig! The blue-eyed, rugged, deep-voiced, looks great in trunks Bond arrived and women swooned all over again at him emerging from the water as Ursula Andress tutted and said "It's been done already, darling!"

Casino Royale. Already a Bond film with David Niven but this delivered something more than that film icon could. It propelled Craig into the role, with Venice as a backdrop, making driving a Ford Mondeo look sexy and showing how a man should look in a tuxedo if he wants to fill it properly and not look like a tailored bird of the sea.

But for me, it's the music. Chris Cornell. Let me just repeat his name.

Chris Cornell.

Dearly departed Chris Cornell.

The lead in bands like Soundgarden and Audioslave, Cornell was a grungemaster and his voice? Clear but throaty; rock but melodic; nuanced but powerful, adding a certain flavour to grunge which spoke of old man rock which had gone before but clearly stated "Move over as I have arrived".

He wrote (with David Arnold) and performed You Know My Name, the theme to Casino Royale and it is this that is my favourite Bond theme. There is the assumption that the best tunes should go with the best films but not for me. I liked Casino Royale but in the Daniel Craig canon, it's not a patch on Skyfall.

Even with having Adele sing the theme to Skyfall, taking us back to the power vocalists of yesteryear? A stroke of genius. She was an ideal choice. But still...

I'm not sure how many other people would put You Know My Name at the top of their Bond list. I knew it was a controversial choice but it was only on finding an article researching this piece that I realised exactly how little was actually thought of it.

You see, Rolling Stone place it at 19 in a list of 22. Some might say that Rolling Stone is the music magazine, the authority on modern music, what's good and what's not.

This is what they say:

The first Bond theme since 1983's Octopussy not to borrow the title of the movie, (and the first one not to appear on its movie's soundtrack), this alt-rock dumpster fire really can't be blamed on Chris Cornell. The fault lies with the Sony executive who — in the year 2007 — decided that the dude from Soundgarden was the right voice to introduce the most radically different, forward-thinking James Bond in the character's half-century history. (The singer wasn't even the voice of Audioslave at this point.) Its generic squall of chunky guitar riffs conveys none of the Craig era's style and raw pathos. Bond theme songs have never exactly been on the vanguard, but seldom have they felt so far behind the times.

Biting. I read this and I wonder if they're hearing the same tune as me. Whenever I hear this song, it stays in my head for days afterwards. David Ehrlich, who wrote the Rolling Stone piece calls it "alt-rock dumpster fire" which made me cringe when I read it. I think it's "dumpster fire" with its connotations of rubbish thrown into a place already full of the detritus that is particularly damning, in this case, the detritus of "alt-rock" but beyond that, someone's set it alight to really make sure it burns until there's nothing left - it's worthless.

I disagree.

And then "the dude from Soundgarden". There's something barbed about calling him a "dude" as if Chris Cornell is someone of no consequence with no artistic status and that he should not have been considered outside of the context of his band, because he was just a bloke in Soundgarden, after all. I love Soundgarden but I'm wondering from the tone of David Ehrlich's throwaway comment if he does. He juxtaposes this rather diminishing description of Cornell next to "the most radically different, forward-thinking James Bond in the character's half-century history", which to qualify, really wasn't hard to do, I don't think. Not that I'm taking anything away from Craig as Bond. I think he makes a great Bond and I agree that he is different in the role. He feels more masculine somehow: stronger, more controlled, rounded. But in terms of what Ehrlich says, what this comparison does with the unnaming of Cornell as the forerunning statement before his description of Craig's Bond, is to say this theme tune was not worthy. It was less, not right, poor, not on a par with the superlative of "most".

And then this:

Its generic squall of chunky guitar riffs conveys none of the Craig era's style and raw pathos.

When I heard this music, I felt like it had all the traces of the Bond themes that had gone previously - the motifs, the 60s' blasts of brass, the presence - and that it was exciting. It did herald a new Bond. It was not exactly like what went before but the essence was there and like Craig, it showed an evolution - this song mixed it up just like he did. And the comment about "raw pathos"? Since when did any Bond theme have the brief to instil emotion? It's a fanfare, not a ballad, for crying out loud! But if you want rawness, listen to Cornell's voice. I hear rawness there and it reaches into me and gives me a shake and I like it a lot.

And style? This song feels like it's been crafted. I don't feel like there is a weakness in it. It feels slick, like it knows where it's going and has a determination to get there. If that's not the epitome of Bond, then I don't know what is.

And don't get me started on the lyrics!

When I started writing this, it was purely as an homage to a great tune and to point out that my tastes are not necessarily of those who consider themselves establishers of the canon - the David Ehrlichs of the world. I knew that it would be considered unorthodox. That's the reason I'm writing it. This coming from an enormous fan of John Barry as a composer too, both his film music for Bond and beyond Bond like Dances with Wolves, as well as his orchestral compositions like "The Beyondness of Things".

However, after reading the description above, I'm glad I've written this, to counteract that summary of David Ehrlich's. Because we're all different in our tastes and who are we to say what is good and what is not? On what authority? It's all a matter of personal taste.

I relish it when I hear the opening few bars of You Know My Name when it comes around again on my playlist. I like the soft way that Chris sings the verse at the start - it feels almost assessing, even sly, coaxing even - and then, how the tempo builds as well as the singing into something noisier with drive until the chorus where I can throw my head back and sing along at the top of my lungs, swinging my hair like a Bond girl to the staccato blasts of the starting notes as they're revisited before we take off again. Bloody brilliant!

What can I say? I'm a generics squall of chunky guitar riffs kind of girl.

You can decide for yourself what you think of it as the link is below but I would just like to end with a comment about Chris himself because it seems right to in light of how much I love this song as well as his other music. He committed suicide after battling with depression for most of his life. He was 52 years old. I hope his black hole sun has washed away the rain. The world is a smaller place for not having him in it.

And here's a link to the damning Rolling Stone article:

What would your favourite Bond theme be? I would love to know.

*I know that are many more Bond themes and singers (Sheena Easton for one) who I have not mentioned here but this was not meant to be an exhaustive list. You've got Rolling Stone for that.