Another Way to Die
By Peter SudermanThere’s an inherent danger in using original pop songs with movies — even more than pop soundtracks culled from other albums, they date your work. With the James Bond series, though, that seems to be part of the appeal: As the series has changed, so have the songs that define it.
So it is with the newest Bond theme, by Jack White and Alicia Keys; it’ll play in front of Quantum of Solace, which opens in November.
I tend to think Bond themes work well within the context of the films — and terrible as generic pop songs. Th, is one, though, I kind of like. If this post at Cinematical is any indication, though, that puts me in the minority.
Tags: James Bond
October 6th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Sorry, Peter, I listened to this “song” with high hopes…and heard an incomprehensible farrago that sounds in aural hindsight like everything sucky about The White Stripes, Bond themes, and Alicia Keys — who was supposed to be Wino, of course. The most lethal thing in the Bond movies is the challenge of making a good theme: at least these days. Once they were huge hits. Today? Career lows.
October 6th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
I’m criminally underexposed to the franchise (though I think I know most of the big-deal songs), but has there ever been a theme that references Bond himself as explicitly as the first line of this does? That was a big turn-off for me, to be honest. Even if in another era it might have been okay, in this one it just screams cross-promotion.
Other than that, I really like the verse and the chorus (though they don’t come together for me), but fail to understand what Alicia Keys is doing in this song, at all. It doesn’t play to her assets as a vocalist at all and she gets drowned out when they sing together. Was it just so they could get a few lingering wrist shots in?
October 6th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
[…] Comment: wondering what Alicia Keys is doing in the new James Bond theme. […]
October 6th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
This track somehow manages to be pure Jack White and recognizably Bond at the same time, and I think its fantastic. But, I’m an unabashed White Stripes/Raconteurs fan and a huge Bond fan so I’m predisposed to liking it. Looking forward to the opening title sequence. The Chris Cornell track for Casino Royale was awful, but the opening animation was excellent.