MOVIE music

What makes the perfect Bond song?

Some have been left shaken not stirred by Sam Smith's tune for Spectre. Is there a formula for what separates the best from the forgettable? Clemency Burton-Hill investigates

Of all the things with which Agent 007 is synonymous - cars and cocktails, gadgets and girls - nothing sums up the James Bond franchise more immediately than its music. While the Bond theme (composed by Monty Norman and arranged by John Barry) is itself a thing of wonder, it's the title songs that invariably come to define each film, distilling the experience of what lies ahead. No other film franchise has been so powerfully defined by its music.

"The opening title songs have become truly memorable set pieces and give a real lift to the opening of Bond films," says Hollywood-based British film composer David Buckley. "Our expectations are for something big, seductive and classy. Monty Norman, John Barry and later David Arnold and Thomas Newman, along with a plethora of legendary singers, have established a musical language that is unmistakably Bond."

So, as British artiste Sam Smith now talks to us in that language for his theme song to Spectre, Writing's on the Wall, we ask: what is it that makes a great Bond song? Is there a magic formula? A quick spin through the glories of the back catalogue and it becomes clear that the greatest of them manage to sound somehow classic while simultaneously evoking the contemporary world of the film in question. They relate specifically to their own film, and yet are able to capture in their spirit the whole magnificent history of the franchise. They are theme tunes, and yet could - and do - stand on their own as cracking pop songs.

"I don't think there's a formula", says cultural critic and Bond music aficionado Scott Meslow, "but I think there are a few things that work. You should aim for a measure of timelessness, without being afraid to embrace the musical trends of your era. And you should forge your own trail; trying to replicate what other artists have done has never really worked." Having recently described the writing of Bond title songs as a tricky art, he reminds us, tongue in cheek, that "the best Bond themes tend to appear in the best Bond movies, so if you're going to record a song for 007, try to get it into one of his good movies."

A cue to a kill

One of the best of all is the very first: Goldfinger, recorded in 1964. The first Bond film, Dr No (1962) featured Norman's theme but no title song, and the next instalment, From Russia With Love (1963) included Matt Monro singing a theme song over the closing credits. But Goldfinger was the first to put the theme song front and centre. For Meslow, it is the 'platonic ideal' of all Bond themes. "From the opening blast of the orchestra, it's bold and brassy and unforgettable". Here too is an instance in which artist was perfectly matched to song: where a lesser singer "might be drowned out," he contends, "Shirley Bassey manages to loom over the instrumentation."

Loom is one way of putting it. Bassey, who had been put through her paces by John Barry at London's CTS Studios that August, delivers an immense and frankly badass performance, but it was very nearly pulled from the movie because producer Harry Saltzman considered it 'the worst song I've ever heard in my life'. And yet it went on to set the gold standard by which all other Bond songs are judged.

In a nice twist, given the sexual politics with which all 007 films are charged, for my money it's the Bond girls who do it better. From Shirley Bassey to Carly Simon, Nancy Sinatra to Adele - whose jaw-dropping performance of Skyfall helped scoop the Bond franchise its first ever Oscar in 2013 - the most unforgettable Bond tunes are invariably delivered by fabulous, powerful women.

"There's clearly some vague, amorphous cultural sense of what makes a good 'Bond theme' artist," Meslow reckons. "Generally [it's] a female singer who tends toward lush, jazzy throwback tunes and/or torch songs. There's a reason, after all, that so many people wanted Amy Winehouse to record a Bond theme; that Adele was so clearly the perfect choice for Skyfall; and that Lana Del Rey's name keeps coming up as a plausible contender." But for all the star power of these soloists, he suggests the person who sings the song may be less important than the person who writes it. "It's easy to imagine someone like Adele doing an entire album of 007 covers, and most of them would probably sound amazing. When the 007 franchise started, the song's writer was rarely its singer; today, the person who sings the song is always at least a co-writer. If it were me choosing the next Bond song, I'd focus on the songwriting part first."

So what of singer-songwriter Sam Smith, the 23-year-old multiple Grammy- and Emmy winner and first solo British man to record a Bond song since Tom Jones in 1965? "His songs don't exactly scream 'James Bond', notes Melsow, "but on a pure talent level, he certainly has the voice and the range required to pull it off."

-BBC Culture