Would you have liked George Martin to have continued doing Bond scores after Live and Let Die?
sirso
Posts: 212MI6 Agent
Would you have liked George Martin to have continued doing Bond scores after Live and Let Die?
It would have been interesting, to say the least.
His Live and Let Die score was funky due to the film cashing in on Black Exploitation films, which had funky scores.
Would he have been able to do other styles of score for the later Bond films? Probably.
It would have been interesting to see how he handled For Your Eyes Only, which is one of my less favourite Moore Bond films.
Maybe his score would have improved it.
Comments
I love George Martin's LALD score. I'm sure he could have done others, they would have been interesting and good I'm sure.
Martin's score made a change from Barry and the quality is still there (IMO). TSWLM and FYEO are different to Barry too. They're very much of their time and I enjoy them also. Both fit each film perfectly and it's difficult to imagine either film without these soundtracks.
He was great for Live and Let Die - almost unexpectedly so, you don't get that stuff on side 2 of Yellow Submarine. I wouldn't have minded him doing Golden Gun I guess as it feels a bit trashy and that vibe is heightened by Barry's score, a more lightweight approach might have worked. Otherwise, you can't knock scores for the rest of the Moore Bonds, I don't care for Bill Conti's FYEO soundtrack but it did bring the theme song to the table and others appreciate it, so there you go.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
While LALD is not my fav OST by a long chalk, I think Martin did an underrated job. It fits in with that early seventies vibe, sort of cocky, flashy, pimp-mobile, chill, style; was he trying to do a white-man's Shaft ? I agree with Napoleon, I think he'd have done a sterling job on Golden Gun. Couldn't do much worse than Barry's least impressive turn.
Yes, I can see Martin doing the Golden Gun score.
I'd like to think that if George Martin had had an opportunity to work with Alice Cooper on Cooper's version of the theme song he could have knocked it into useable shape and spun out of it another groovy 70s score for the whole film. But personally I love Barry's score for TMWTGG: Barry brought back the traditional Bond sound, he keyed brilliantly into the dark romance of Christopher Lee's persona and the exoticism of the Far East locations, and he launched (for film) his lasting symphonic arrangement of the Bond theme - which for me suited Moore to a tee.
I would have liked Martin to do the ones Barry didn't, ie TSWLM, FYEO and LTK.
I've come to like the Moroder-esque disco groove of the Spy Who Loved Me. The others are kind of bland.
I'd have preferred if Barry kept it horn-heavy in the 70s and 80s, though those melodies sounded good with big string section too, just less specifically Bond-like.
if Alice Cooper did the title song, what if the score was by Bob Ezrin? probably too many sound effects, not enough actual music.
I liked the lack of horns in Barry's 70s scores. To me the horns only suited the FRWL/GF era, they seem dated for Bond films that were not tied to an early 1960s UK cultural jazz/swing aesthetic.
OHMSS never used horns, and that was his best Bond score. And TB hardly used them at all, as neither did YOLT.
If Bond films were rebooted to be set in the 50s or early 60s, then horns would be appropriate.