charts, while Duran Duran's 'A View to a Kill' from the 1985 film reached No. Sometimes the marriage of performer and Bond resulted in a song that exploded in the cultural consciousness beyond the film itself: Paul McCartney and Wings' title track for 1973's Live and Let Die hit No. The notion of the Bond theme - a title track performed by a popular artist of the era - started with a bang: Shirley Bassey's legendary 'Goldfinger,' a brassy smash that played over the opening credits of 1964's Goldfingerand gave Bond films a template to follow to this day.

Music is as important to the James Bond franchise as shaken martinis. The last-minute scramble worked: Twenty-five films and 58 years later, the 007 theme remains instantly recognizable and absolutely unforgettable. No, at which point Barry collaborated with a 25-year-old studio guitarist named Vic Flick to give what would become the 'James Bond Theme' its iconic motif. As the story goes, producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman enlisted Barry to help complete Norman's score for 1962's Dr. Barry’s sound world, the alpha and the omega of Martini–swilling, blunt-instrument-MI6-agent soundtracks forevermore.The John Barry & Orchestra performance of composer Monty Norman's James Bond theme is built on what might be the best-known guitar riff in cinematic history - but it almost didn't even happen.

Other notable features of The Theme include chromatic movement in the bass, the half-diminished stinger announcing the trademark sniper-gets-sniped opening in the films, the unexpected shift to swing (and back): the best of the remaining twenty-three Bond themes in the list below (some of which Barry also composed or arranged) keep one foot in Mr. The iconic angular motive is so recognizable, it can be belted out (BAH-DUP BAH-DAAAAH!) whenever one of your friends tries to pull some slick, secret-agent move - with everyone getting the reference. The music is further cooled with the ride cymbal, then heated with tight brass licks and dirty treble-and-reverb-heavy, low-gain surf guitar. Like Ennio Morricone’s scores for Sergio Leone’s Man with No Name Trilogy that coined the Spaghetti Western, John Barry created an orchestral genre - and launched a franchise - with the opening ice-cool vibraphone of “The James Bond Theme,” which he arranged.

007 bond songs