Between British clarinetist Acker Bilk's No. 1 Billboard pop-chart hit Stranger on the Shore in early 1962 and the Beatles arrival in America in February 1964, there was James Bond. The sexualized, technicolor action/spy films Dr. No (1962) and From Russia With Love (1963) were a brand new genre, and Sean Connery's Bond was impossibly dashing and daring. Most of all, his British accent defined cool and primed the pump for the British Invasion to come. Bondmania was nearly on par with what would follow with the Fab Four. Kid merchandise hyping 007, secret agents and spying came in the form of toys, games, trading cards and dozens of other products. As for young adults, many of whom were saddled with young kids at the dawn of the '60s, Bond made them feel young and sexy again.
As I've posted in the past, Thunderball (1965) was my first Bond film in the theater at age 9, courtesy of my father, who took me along since there was no place else to put me. But when Domino (Claudine Auger) turned up on the beach in her black and white bikini, my dad dragged me out, not wanting to endure the wrath of my mother, I suppose. To read my 2012 Wall Street Journal essay on the James Bond Theme, go here.
I haven't yet seen No Time to Die, the 25th film in the official Bond series. But I was gratified to receive the newly updated Best of Bond...James Bond box of music. The set includes three new entries—No Time To Die by Billie Eilish from No Time To Die, Adele’s Skyfall from Skyfall, and Sam Smith’s Spectre theme from Writing’s on the Wall.
As a Bond devotee, I love listening to all the themes in order, starting with the James Bond Theme from Dr. No. Through this one set, you can hear how the definition of masculinity and femininity changed over the decades, from the jazzy bombast of the 1960s to the softer power-ballad approach in the '70s and Brit-pop feel in the '80s and so on. Collectively, the Bond themes are like those long cylinders they sink into the Arctic to haul up ancient ice for signs of what natural events took place on the planet over the centuries. The Bond themes tell us a great deal about what was going on and how we viewed ourselves and our national threats. The main character remained the same, but how his prowess was celebrated through music shifted continuously based on the times.
The Bond franchise seems to be healthy based on box office receipts from the new film, despite the fact that the focus of evil has evolved over time. We're coming perilously close now to Bond rescuing the Western world from itself.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Best of Bond...James Bond here.
JazzWax clip: Here's the theme to Dr. No...
Here's the opening theme to Thunderball...
And here's the opening theme to Goldfinger...
