November 19, 2012

• No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to DIE

  Even with school out, all I’ve really managed to do with my vacation so far is go play a few days worth of video games and judo.  I’ve still got jobs and volunteer work, so that takes up a fair amount of time, and I’m a bit out of touch with pop culture.  It’s a very different way of life to college, when at least my work was in theatres so I could always keep up with what was current.

   

  I heard the Skyfall theme sung by Adelle on the radio today for the first time.  Even though it’s a shortened version, I think it’s pretty badass.  [CM] is the one who who indtroduced me to Adelle a while back, but though I’ve listened to a few of her albums, it’s never really been my kind of music.  But Bond music?  That’s a genre in itself.  

  If I had to compare, I’d say that Madonna’s Die Another Day was the other song to really stand out.  Though it was interesting, I’m a sucker for tradition.  I want the background to be saturated with a full brass and string section.  The Skyfall song has this ethereal, sinister feel to it– it has this sense of constant ebb and flow of a tide of impending something.    Die Another Day, on the other hand, was more of a techno-dancey sorta thing, and by nature didn’t really go anywhere– it was just the sort of song you’d hear at a club that you could hear at any point and it would more or less sound the same.  Skyfall definately has a lot more attitude to it.

   

  Adelle definately has the voice and the charisma in it to carry a bond song.  I find that the backing music was okay though– it really is carried through by Adelle mostly.

   

  If you want to hear a really bitchin Bond song?  Look up the Goldfinger theme ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51Wg6k9cWhM ) , which I think is the hands down best Bond song so far.  In that song, you hear the trumpets, the trombones, the french horns, and even the tambourine clearly trying to sell you something– it’s this picture of a moonlight small brass quartet playing in a posh riverside Cairo cafe, and the tambourine evokes some dangerous images of snake charmers and mediteranean / dessert culture when all that stuff still used to be categorically villanous.  And this is where Bond works.

   

  I don’t know if Adelle would fit as a singer for Goldfinger, because Adelle doesn’t seem… hmm… positively cheerily bombastic enough.  She has a very different weight to her voice, like a well tuned snarl at it’s brightest and a piercing cyncism at least.  Basically, I don’t think she can make a song that ever really sounds happy.

   

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  I loved James Bond movies when I was a kid, although I never really understood the subtones of alcoholism and misogyny until I was much older.  The image of Bond wasn’t even about the suits, it was really all about the cool toys.   That was even cooler when I started watching James Bond Junior (the cartoon) everyday after school.

   

  Once Daniel Craig came onboard, things changed a bit– there were markedly less toys than there used to be (although the in-car defribilator was one of my favourites).  But just because he’s Daniel Craig, and he’s willing to be shot and to take a shitload of abuse, I am still onboard because I like this interpretation of a rougher, up-to-his-knees kind of character.

  • 5:21 pm
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