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Oh, Henry. Don't get me started. Too late, you got me started.
That the academy would give a best score nomination to The Spy Who Loved Me, or any Roger Moore Bond movie, is just inconceivable! Sure, you can like the scores, and they could be good, but best score nominations should be given to scores that really add something, that make a difference, that elevates what you're watching. Great scores need something of quality to cling to. Otherwise, they're just good music.
That the academy would give James Bond best score/song nominations to virtually any composer/songwriter not named John Barry is inconceivable! Yeah, yeah, some good songs got nominated and maybe some good scores, but no, I don't think so.
That the academy would not nominate John Barry for Bond scores and songs when Bond scores and songs were breaking new ground is inconceivable! Nominated Barry Bond scores for consideration: From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice, OHMSS. Songs: Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice, We Have All the Time in the World, Diamonds Are Forever.
I do love Barry's space music in Moonraker, but you can't hear it in the movie and the movie is just so dreadfully bad that no score could have elevated it. What composer said, "You can dress up a corpse, but you can't bring it back to life?
Henry, I'm still in your corner, but you got me started.
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In the recent book: Nobody Does It Better, Richard Maibaum is quoted: "John Barry is a genius. There's no doubt about it. His work on the Bond films has been outstanding. It's even more outstanding when you hear some of the non-regular composers. I should say Marvin Hamlisch's work on Spy was fine, but it wasn't anything like a Barry score."
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This is what I posted over ten years ago, describing by youthful introduction to James Bond music during the era when John Barry was alternating with Martin, Hamlisch, and Conti:
I started collecting Bond music on LP as a teenager. I had two of the Roland Shaw LPs that were compilations of some '67 ROYALE plus Barry cues, and I absolutely loved them. I started buying what Bond LPs I could find, meaning the fairly current ones. And DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER blew me away on TV so I special-ordered that album.
And it seemed like there was an alternating effect. I favored every other album:
* The DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER LP was a let-down because it was missing the coolest parts. The re-issue CD would one day repair matters.
* LIVE AND LET DIE was edgy and hip.
* THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN was more formal and orchestral, plus some superb jazz but hardly a contemporary sound.
* THE SPY WHO LOVED ME seemed like the coolest, most elegant and urbane album I'd ever heard. In 1977 I was so obsessed with the LP and movie (with the Lotus and Barbara Bach in her evening gown) that I barely noticed STAR WARS that year. I saw SWLM three times (unheard of for me) and played the album quite a bit.
* MOONRAKER was formal and orchestral (but I loved the song).
* FOR YOUR EYES ONLY was exciting and exuberant, even with only the LP in hand. [Later on the expanded CD, I would have an immersive, all-encompassing experience. Conti created a complete musical world, with diverse elements that somehow all worked to paint an imaginary landscape. There was rock, ethnic, and traditional orchestra. There were shimmering auditory celebrations of sunlit, picturesque locales, and even some abstract danger music (Ski...Shoot...Jump) that I somehow like despite generally hating abstract music.]
* Then the OCTOPUSSY LP came out and it was formal and orchestral.
And right then I was asking myself, "Why do they keep bringing back John Barry?"
Granted, I was young. And even then, I was crazy about interior score cues from FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, GOLDFINGER, THUNDERBALL, and YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, all of which I knew from Roland Shaw's faithful and in-depth covers. But they were already vintage and historical when I discovered them. For me the Barry sound had never been contemporary. And OCTOPUSSY, though new, wasn't changing that perception.
That's why it was so shocking to me that Lukas would write in FSM's June 2003 issue, that
"...John Barry/James Bond soundtracks are among the best things in the world, while the non-Barry/Bond soundtracks are among the worst... everybody but Barry stinks when it comes to Bond."
even if he was exaggerating for quasi-comical effect.
Circumstances and youthful taste had once led me to think that nearly the opposite was true. Today I'm glad to have it all, but I'll always have a special regard for the early non-Barrys, especially Hamlisch and Conti. I refuse to see them as second-class Bonds.
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Marvin Hamlisch is the only person to receive a Best Song & Score Oscar nomination for a James Bond film, impressive! Good for him. THE SPY WHO LOVED ME is my second favorite Bond soundtrack, FYEO is my favorite. Nobody get mad, I love Barry's Bond scores too.
Let's not forget that Carly Simon wrote the lyric and did a great job singing it. Nobody did it better than she.
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Barry's scores had the most drama--they played it straight and kept the movies fairly serious (FAIRLY--let's not talk about the slide whistle) in a way that the other scores seemed to lack--it was almost like the other composers were trying too hard.
And let's face, John Barry's sound IS the James Bond sound--it still is, even now. Composers who are hired to work on the films always borrow from Barry's vocabulary in some fashion. Admittedly, there are only so many ways to score a spy film but look at Goldeneye--Serra did something COMPLETELY different from any of the composers before him and the producers still wanted to get Altman to write a more Barry-esque for the the tank chase.
W/R/T TSWLM, Hamlisch is great composer and very talented but his music feels very dated--I tried listening to the original score a handful of times but it just never grabbed me. The movie is great though, one of my favorite Moore Bonds.
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