Barry versus Arnold

anshopkins

It just seems to me that with John Barry, Marvin Hamlisch, Sheena Easton, etc. that we got better melodies, better lyrics, more love themes than we get presently with David Arnold. His Bond music, although well-produced, is a bit edgy for those, like me, who are looking for the love angle in Bond films....thoughts?

Barbel

anshopkins wrote:

It just seems to me that with John Barry, Marvin Hamlisch, Sheena Easton, etc. that we got better melodies, better lyrics, more love themes than we get presently with David Arnold. His Bond music, although well-produced, is a bit edgy for those, like me, who are looking for the love angle in Bond films....thoughts?

John Barry is the absolute sine qua non of James Bond music. Without quoting statistics, his sound is the sound of James Bond- the unique combination of brass & guitar that is the "James Bond Theme", his sinuously accurate melodies for OHMSS, GF, TB etc, and his awe-inspriingly beautiful love songs such as "We Have All The Time In The World".
David Arnold is perfectly capable of composing an appropriately Bondian melody (cf "Surrender", "City of Lovers") but is hampered by commercial restrictions and too often not permitted the degree of artistic freedom enjoyed by JB in the early days.

anshopkins

...a bit touchy, are we? Just an opinion, I'm not asking you to share it.

Sir Miles

anshopkins wrote:

...a bit touchy, are we? Just an opinion, I'm not asking you to share it.

anshopkins - I think you totally mis-read the intent of the post by Barbel....I'm not sure what you read but Barbel is just voicing his opinion...and he's not having a 'go' at you...if you re-read it you may just find he somewhat agrees with you

Barbel

Thoughts on the subject were asked for; thoughts on the subject were given. No touchiness should be inferred; none was implied.

(Cheers, Sir Miles)

anshopkins

Okay, I'll give you a for instance. Last Saturday night during my weekly Bondathon, I ended with the second DVD of CR with all the extras...one of which was the Chris Cornell's video of "You Know My Name".

I am a singer of songs and that cannot hold a candle to Matt Munro's "From Russia with Love". It's okay for you to have an opinion, but that remains mine.:)

Barbel

I've always enjoyed performing FRWL, usually on piano (although it works nicely enough on guitar, too; very romantic) in Em to seque into the JB Theme for the coda. On guitar I prefer to play it in Dm these days. YKMN I played live a couple of times when it was in the charts; I remember having to lower the key considerably!

The Cat

anshopkins wrote:

Okay, I'll give you a for instance. Last Saturday night during my weekly Bondathon, I ended with the second DVD of CR with all the extras...one of which was the Chris Cornell's video of "You Know My Name".

I am a singer of songs and that cannot hold a candle to Matt Munro's "From Russia with Love". It's okay for you to have an opinion, but that remains mine.:)

Fun fact for today: "From Russia With Love" was not written by John Barry.

Barbel

The Cat wrote:

Fun fact for today: "From Russia With Love" was not written by John Barry.

Of course not! Where have you been, Cat, haven't heard much from you for a while?

Napoleon Plural

Eh? Surely the tune was written by Barry? ?:)

Hardyboy

Napoleon Plural wrote:

Eh? Surely the tune was written by Barry? ?:)

Nope--music and lyrics were by Lionel Bart, most famous for Oliver! Barry arranged the tune, giving it its sound, but that's it.

Barbel

Harry Saltzman wasn't keen on giving JB the title song, while Cubby Broccoli and Terence Young were happy for him to do the score. Saltzman therefore asked Lionel Bart to write the title song. JB arranged & conducted the instrumental version heard over the main titles, writing the intro & outro portions known as "James Bond Is Back". He didn't conduct Matt Monro's vocal version, though.

Napoleon Plural

Well, I never knew that! Odd, I'd have thought I'd have noticed Bart's name pop up on the credits over the years. I suppose that explains Harry Saltzman going ape over the song Goldfinger, saying they would have cancelled it had they had any more time; Barry was untested at that point and it was his first time.

It might also explain Barry's chagrin at being asked back for GoldenEye (or was it TND?) but not being offered the song, it must have felt like he hadn't made any progress in 35 years....

The Cat

Napoleon Plural wrote:

It might also explain Barry's chagrin at being asked back for GoldenEye (or was it TND?) but not being offered the song, it must have felt like he hadn't made any progress in 35 years....

Not really. Keep an eye out for a fascinating new article in the near future which will put things into perspective.

Barbel

Barry and Saltzman always had a... fragile relationship. There are various stories over the years about disagreements between the two (one example would be JB throwing Saltzman out of his flat when he was critical of the song for DAF).

Napoleon Plural

Someone said that Broccoli would offer you a cigar, and Saltman would knock it out of your mouth!

On a similar subject, anyone heard the story of Henry Mancini's bitchery? Anthony Newley wrote the lyrics to Goldfinger, so I believe, and come Oscar night, the song won a gong. He was in the washroom at the ceremony, when Henry Mancini comes in and says something like, "Hey, that's a real neat tune you've got there, I wonder where you got it from...' And of course, the winner for the previous year's Oscar was Mancini's Moon River, with the similar opening tune: Moon River... Gold... finger.

I suppose Newley can tell that story because it's not his tune.

Now I think about it, maybe some of the best Bond songs aren't Barry themes. Live And Let Die, The Spy, FYEO, AVTAK. Set against Thunderball, The Man With The Golden Gun... okay, I'm stretching a point.

I look forward to your info, The Cat.

Barbel

The lyrics to GF are by Anthony Newley and his regular songwriting partner, Leslie Bricusse (who wrote lyrics for such other Bond songs as MKKBB and YOLT). The story goes that when Barry, having worked hard on the melody (and keeping his flatmate Michael Caine awake while doing so), first played it to them they instantly noticed the resemblance to Moon River and sang "Goldfinger, wider than a mile..." not to JB's pleasure.

shaken66

Nothing to add, but this is just a really interesting thread, guys! -{

Napoleon Plural

Hey, what happened to the Cat's new article with surprise revelations? ?:)

The Cat

I have no contol over its publication. It will appear in a James Bond centered essay volume in the near future.

Barbel

The Cat wrote:

It will appear in a James Bond centered essay volume in the near future.

...and I look forward to seeing that!

RJJB

John Barry writes evocative, memorable music. His compositions for each movie are unique.
David Arnold makes noise.

Napoleon Plural

My mate Danny plays a wargames video set usually in medieval times in Europe. He'll spend hours at the computer, and every so often a received-pronunciation shout of "Well done, sire! You have destroyed their men and victory is surely ours!" goes up, even if he's supposed to be the Spanish or something.

The game has this generic, stressful music going on with no obvious melody although it's quite stirring. It reminds me of David Arnold's scores for the Bond films.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Ricardo C.

Barry vs. Arnold...gee...let me give you a musical interpretation of how seriously I compare the two.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRzf2qh2lTE


Arnold sucks.

hegottheboot

I don't think Arnold ever really lets himself go musically when scoring the Bonds. It all seems to be in one place. Barry would adequately reflect whatever mood Bond was in and perfectly match the situation.
The FRWL song is really a great song, but the style doesn't exactly fit what Bond needed. Barry's opening titles score is stupendous-lush, exciting, and exotic enough to match the eroticism of the belly dancer. It is perfect-especially when the music trails off and those bongos come in...
I also think that his best work may be the Ipcress File score. Wonder if he knew that Caine would play Palmer and then kept his flatmate in mind while composing.

Barbel

hegottheboot wrote:

Wonder if he knew that Caine would play Palmer and then kept his flatmate in mind while composing.

He did, and very much so.

Napoleon Plural

Sadly, the same thing happened over 20 years later, and he was forced to share a suite with Howard the Duck while scoring the George Lucas film. The Duck proved very irritating, ('As much of a diva as Streisand, but with a smaller nose') Barry is quoted as saying in his autobiography, the two fell out over use of the bathroom and Barry's music suffered as a result.

Dalton is king of the hil

Barry is way better than Arnold. In fact Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace are two most none melodic and most main streame Bond soundtracks I have ever heard... Where is the sound...? I am not that conservative. I like to hear new stuff. I liked what Serra did with GoldenEye. Very much but the reason is that it was melodic and unique (Apart from the fact that the music for GoldenEye sound very much as the music Serra composed for leon the year before...) just like George Martin. Wow. It was so fresh. CR and QOS are the two most uninspiring 007 scores since 1962... Tomorrow Never Dies had its moments but it was nowhere near as thorough as the John Barry scores... Surrender was very very very good though... Davi Arnold peaked with his very melodic score for The world is not enough.