Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you seek easily the best score of the Pierce Brosnan era of the franchise, with a superior mix of jazzy 1960's style and hard-nosed, techno-thrilling instrumentation. Avoid it... on all the commercial albums if you want a fair and comprehensive presentation of music from the film. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Tomorrow Never Dies: (David Arnold) If one thing is certain about Pierce Brosnan's tenure as British agent James Bond, it's the superiority of Tomorrow Never Dies. Everything clicked in this, the second of his films as 007. His performance reached back to the confidence of Sean Connery, the love interest came packaged as Michelle Yeoh (who is more Bond's equal than just another conquest), a previous flame's death provokes a malice in Bond loyal to the books' original intent, the villain is charmingly enthusiastic and has a cool new stealth weapon as a toy, and David Arnold's score combined the best of the John Barry years with the younger composer's techno-saavy sensibilities. While Goldeneye had revived the series by becoming the first $100 million grossing Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies was far better packaged and drew greater interest from hardcore fans of the franchise's classics. With John Barry now out of the picture (despite his seeming renewed interest in scoring another Bond film during the Brosnan years), Arnold was a perfect successor. His love of the franchise and knack for imitating the expansive style of Barry in his early scores, not to mention his British heritage, made him the logical choice. And fans weren't disappointed. The score than Arnold assembled for Tomorrow Never Dies is a sophisticated and intelligent tribute to the classic Barry scores while pushing the envelope with synthetic rhythms and drum pads to aide the traditional orchestra in joining Bond in a rapidly evolving technological age. The trademark action style that Arnold established in Stargate and Independence Day is combined with a distinct return to the flamboyant style of the jazzy Bond scores of the 1960's, and with the presence of the synthetic elements native to Arnold's roots in the rock genre, every variety of Arnold fan had something to look forward. Arnold would become the franchise's regular voice, allowing the subsequent films to really define his career (with very few notable scores for non-Bond films mixed in between). He would continue pushing the synthetic side of his music for the franchise until a somewhat dissatisfying score for Die Another Day would pull Arnold back to the combo style of Tomorrow Never Dies in the outstanding Casino Royale. Arnold was obviously keenly aware that the Bond frachise's scores had their own unique formula while Barry was in charge, and that formula would continue here. The franchise theme by Monty Norman is quoted liberally in Tomorrow Never Dies, with its incorporation ranging from full-blown three-minute tributes to clever counterpoint against the new themes for the film. Arnold's full expressions of the Norman theme are extremely astute in an instrumental sense. Even the opening fifteen seconds of the score offers brass and cymbal accents true to Barry's introductions. The muted trumpets, solo flute, and electric guitar performances in "Company Car" provide the most true and entertaining modern performance of the Norman concept available. This three-minute cue establishes a standard by which fans and students of the franchise can worship and study. Acoustically, the recording is flawless. Aside from the statements of Norman's theme throughout the score, Arnold wrote one of the franchise's best title songs and integrated its theme extremely well throughout the entire score. With all the wailing brass flair of Goldfinger, his title theme is both seductively alluring and strikingly defiant, an easily memorable aspect of the film. In the opening action sequence before the credits ("White Knight"), Arnold introduces the theme with nobility at the 7:10 mark (in between ample development of Norman's theme). This theme punctuates many of the action sequences and is given an Eastern personality in "Kowloon Bay" before a last monumental statement for strings and bold brass counterpoint at the resolution of the film. A theme for Teri Hatcher's role as the villain's wife and former Bond lover is provided twice in Tomorrow Never Dies. As they reunite, Arnold allows the Barry-like idea to flourish with the full ensemble (once again in layered strings under brass counterpoint) before a solo woodwind echos accompany her demise. A deliberate, pounding motif for the villain Elliot Carver and his stealth ship is sparsely utilized throughout the score (its fullest appearance is at 3:55 into "The Sinking of the Devonshire"), though it receives some intriguing, less obvious exploration in "Underwater Discovery." If the score for Tomorrow Never Dies has a weakness, it's in the largely understated musical representation for Carver, as well as other "badguy" elements such as in "Doctor Kaufman." To counter the theme for Carver's wife earlier in the film, Arnold writes a theme for Michelle Yeoh's agent and the Eastern locations of the story. It's only receives brief treatment, but it is quite gorgeous on solo guitar and piano in the early portions of "Bike Shop Fight" and "Kowloon Bay." A full rendition in the latter cue, merging with the title theme, is a highlight of the score. Faint hints of this theme come through in the very last minute of the score, though this progression seems to be a nod to Barry's You Only Live Twice. And that brings up another important point about Tomorrow Never Dies: the many references to previous scores in the franchise. In the opening battle, Arnold states a fragment of From Russia With Love. The following cue offers brass wails identical to later action sequences in Goldfinger. In both "White Knight" and more obviously at 0:45 into "Hamburg Break In," Arnold quotes the five-note bass sequence that preceded Tina Turner's song for Goldeneye, arguably the most memorable element from the soundtrack of that film. He would not make the same number of references in his scores for the subsequent Brosnan/Bond films, though he does make a clever reference to the title theme for Tomorrow Never Dies during a conversational cue after Bond's early rescue in Die Another Day. In retrospect, Tomorrow Never Dies is a much better score than many gave it credit for being at the time. Some listeners were turned off by the extensive synthetic percussion used in "Back Seat Driver" and "Hamburg Break Out," among a few others, and these cues are indeed less effective outside the context of the film (where they come in conflict with the better balance of the surrounding material). But the varied, slapping percussion of "Bike Chase" is a perfect combination of both worlds, and its highly effective sound would set the stage for cues like the one for the opening chase sequence in Casino Royale. For the most part, the balance in mixing in Tomorrow Never Dies is outstanding, and the gorgeous piano solos in several cues are testimony to this clarity. Subsequent Arnold scores tended to get muddy in their rowdy action cues, especially in Die Another Day, though a total lack of theme in that later score is the greater problem. As anyone can expect, not everything with Tomorrow Never Dies went well. First and foremost, the song situation would be very dissatisfying for both Arnold and Bond fans alike. While the recording of the title song by k.d. lang would match the style and theme of Arnold's score with incredible cohesion and effectiveness, the producers of the film saw fit to hire a bigger name to provide a replacement song for the traditional opening credits sequence. This move was unfortunate not only because of Arnold's song was superior and in spirit of the franchise, but also because of lang's sulty voice and spirited performance. The replacement song is performed by Sheryl Crow, whose popularity at the time was seen as an asset, but whose beach-bum voice and lazy performance was a disgrace to the film. The video game score for Tomorrow Never Dies would heavily favor the use of Arnold's song theme, retitled "Surrender," over the presence of Crow's song. With critics, fans, and producers all easily recognizing the superiority of the lang song, Arnold was rewarded with the opportunity to write his own song for The World is Not Enough two years later (before suffering from extraordinary frustration trying to adapt Madonna's non-thematic song into the score for Die Another Day). A more minor criticism of Tomorrow Never Dies responds to the fact that Arnold only used his trademark, beautiful choir for a short snippet of "The Sinking of the Devonshire," though given that this cue sounds awkward in its sudden shift to Stargate during the slow-motion sinking and death sequence, that's not necessarily a negative. A truly major problem with Tomorrow Never Dies, however, was its album release. Much to the angst of Arnold, a hectic and disorganized post-production schedule for the film caused the music to be recorded chronologically in small portions over a matter of many months. As a result, the original 1997 album release by A&M Records could only feature the score material that had been mixed and mastered from the first half of the film. The entire last third of the score was missing from this product, including all of the Eastern-flavored cues and the pivotal "Bike Chase" and "All in a Day's Work" music of over ten minutes. This omission, which didn't make sense to consumers at the time, combined with the replacement of lang's song from the title credits, caused Bond fans to go stir crazy immediately. After much fuss and delay, controversy and discussion, most of the remaining music from the film was finally made available on a commercial release from Chapter III Records in 2000 (along with a concurrent release of Tommy Tallarico's score for the Tomorrow Never Dies video game). At the time, The World is Not Enough was failing to muster the same approval as its predecessor, and the latter film's release date forced Chapter III to hold back the expanded version of Tomorrow Never Dies by several weeks. Despite providing 26 minutes of score not available on the previous album, the Chapter III product does have its share of flaws. Although the packaging and press information advertised it as being "complete," it's actually missing several important pieces of music from the film. One major omission is the track "Station Break," the four-minute cue that plays as Bond takes Elliot Carver off the air and Arnold provides a darkly dramatic performance of the love theme that foreshadows an uncertain future for the Paris character. Ironically, this cue appeared in full on the 1997 album. Additionally, several very short snippets of music remain missing on album, including the film's ending to "White Knight." The second major drawback to the expanded album is the lack of the k.d. lang song. None of the songs on the original album appears on the expanded volume, likely due to financial reasons. The eleven-minute interview with Arnold at the end of the 2000 album is interesting; the questions are intelligent and the interview is mixed nicely with some of Arnold's cues. But it's not something you'll find yourself listening to a second time. A perfect album could have resulted if the interview were dumped in favor of "Station Break" and "Surrender," but failing that, fans of the film and franchise are forced to own both products. The sound quality on both albums is equally vibrant. For the most hardcore of fans, there do exist 2-CD bootlegs that are indeed complete, featuring the isolated DVD score, the two songs, and bonus material totalling over 140 minutes in length. Overall, Tomorrow Never Dies remains ahead of Casino Royale as the definitive David Arnold entry in the James Bond franchise. Perhaps it is no coicidence that the best film of the Brosnan era featured the best score during that period.
Music as Heard on 1997 Album: *** Music as Heard on 2000 Album: **** Overall: **** Track Listings (1997 Album):
Total Time: 50:12
Track Listings (2000 Album):
Total Time: 75:44
* Previously unreleased track All artwork and sound clips from Tomorrow Never Dies are Copyright © 1997, 2000, A&M Records, Chapter III Records. The reviews and notes contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Filmtracks Publications. Audio clips can be heard using RealPlayer but cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 11/25/97, updated 3/3/08. Review Version 4.1 - PHP (Filmtracks Publications). Copyright © 1997-2013, Christian Clemmensen. All rights reserved. |
1997 Release