going straight for your heart
(or: november 12’s honey from the hive)
posted at 9:19 am by brandon in sweet you rock and sweet you roll
Gladys Knight — “Licence to Kill”
(from Licence to Kill [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
In honor of James Bond’s triumphant return to the world’s cinemas (with a $90 million weekend at the North American box office alone for the latest installment, Skyfall), I’d like a moment of appreciation for my own personal favorite Bond theme, which would have been a well-deserved smash in the spring of 1990 had the film itself not been such a commercial dud. Decades later, it’s still brills. (As for the current title theme, written and performed by the peerless Adele: A professed his love for the tune after seeing the film Saturday night, but I find it a bit meh. It’s certainly lush and alluring, and Adele predictably gives it her all vocally, but the verses just meander aimlessly and the chorus lacks one of those trademark grab-ya-by-the-guts hooks that her gunnysack full of Grammys proves she knows how to craft. In a recent string of red-hot successes, “Skyfall” leaves me cold.)
November 12th, 2012 at 11:42 pm
Adele’s Skyfall is wonderful, from the first note to the last (and the accompanying sequence in the movie is pretty good too); it may well be among my five favorite Bond themes! (As for the movie itself, sadly, I was not quite as impressed.)