 |
Arnold |
Die Another Day: (David Arnold) With the entry of
Die Another Day in 2002, the James Bond series surpassed the
20-film mark, an extraordinary achievement considering that a handful of
those movies existed on many people's "worst films of all time" lists.
Unfortunately, this particular 007 adventure by director Lee Tamahori
proved to be among the worst of the worst, decelerating the franchise so
quickly that it concluded the Pierce Brosnan era and left a lengthy
break before Warner Brothers, MGM, and producer Barbara Broccoli, among
others, managed to reboot the concept with the help of Daniel Craig in
the far superior
Casino Royale. That circumstance didn't stop
Brosnan, completing his fourth film as Bond, from teaming up with the
super-hot Halle Berry in an effort to thwart the world's newest big, bad
billionaire madmen who seek domination with special crystals, remote
fortresses, secret satellites, and other tired staples of the Bond
franchise. While the film was digging the concept into a bigger hole,
composers Monty Norman and John Barry were battling it out in court to
decide who exactly could claim the ownership of the infamous James Bond
theme. David Arnold, meanwhile, expanded upon his tenure with his third
and weakest score for the franchise. The news about
Die Another
Day was nearly all bad, and for film score collectors, the
disintegration of Arnold's mastery in the Bond franchise was
particularly disappointing. He burst onto the Bond scene with the highly
acclaimed score for
Tomorrow Never Dies in 1997, a work that
would lead to two albums and the rejoicing of fans of traditional Bond
music from the pen of Barry. His touch for capturing the spirit of
Barry's 007 music (and Norman's theme in particular) and merging it with
his own sensibilities had yielded an exciting and relieving sound.
Arnold's music for
The World is Not Enough was a
techno/electronica experiment within the same vein, shifting the
emphasis of some of the action sequences from orchestral dominance to a
leading roll for synthetic accents, usually in the form of ripping and
slapping loops. This technique left many Bond collectors out in the
cold, and for those fans in particular,
Die Another Day revealed
an even greater nightmare.
Before discussing the score for
Die Another Day,
however, the title song begs for its fair share of whipping. The songs
in the Bond franchise are more important to the greater movie-going
masses than the underscores, their legacy extending into nearly every
generation of American culture, and many casual music buyers purchase
the Bond soundtracks only for the title song. The songs since Brosnan's
resurrection of the franchise in 1995 had been mediocre at best. From
Tina Turner to Sheryl Crow and Garbage, the best of lot was ironically
k.d. lang's title performance for
Tomorrow Never Dies, which was
rejected and sent to the end credits of its film. When Madonna was
announced as the performer for the title song of
Die Another Day,
many Bond fans were cautiously optimistic. The female performers of Bond
songs have traditionally featured a lustful, mature voice, and Madonna's
tone had grown into exactly that type since her popular, slower ballads
began to hit the air-waves in the mid-1990s ("Take a Bow," "You'll See,"
"Frozen," "The Power of Good-Bye," etc.). Additionally, her spectacular
singing performances for the film
Evita in 1996 exhibited a
further ability to combine romance and pizzazz on the big screen.
Breaking with tradition, however, the title song for
Die Another
Day was not written by the score's composer; instead, it was the
result of Madonna, songwriter Michael Colombier, and producer Mirwais
Ahmadzai, all of whom having collaborated on the singer's pop album
releases of the era. Unfortunately, for the Bond franchise and all of
its loyal fans, Madonna's "Die Another Day" is the worst disgrace ever
to tarnish the opening credits of a James Bond film. It's even more
insufferable than Jack White and Alicia Keys' dubious "Another Way to
Die" for
Quantum of Solace. There exists no insult that can
adequately describe the hideous and inappropriate trash that Madonna and
her partners smeared on
Die Another Day. The most commonly cited
problem with the song involves the fact that it ignores any tradition of
the Bond franchise. The title song in Bond films is either a pop rock
song or a love ballad, and there's no sense in trying to fix something
that isn't broken by flailing around with experimental, heavily
processed, genre-bending exercises.
The songs submitted just prior by Crow and Garbage, while
neglecting the romantic aspect of the tradition, at least played to the
mainstream rock audience. Unquestionably, "Die Another Day" is an
enormous leap out of the mainstream and utilizes a choppy techno and
electronica style of editing and mutilation that renders it useless for
both the film and for the average listener. Forget the longtime Bond
fans who owned all the Barry LP soundtracks; the song in
Die Another
Day repulsed people well beyond that small group. The processing in
particular is a fatal characteristic; the recordings of both the voice
and the backing orchestra are digitally chopped into a nearly
incomprehensible garble of noise that may honestly make a listener
believe for a moment that there is a horrible problem with his or her
stereo system. There is no flow to the song, which hides perhaps the
total inadequacy of the song's melody (or lack thereof). That melody is
a simplistic range of just a few notes, rendering it nearly impossible
for Arnold to adapt it well into the score. Arnold, who was
half-finished with his own song for the film, had no kind word for
Madonna's song, admitting that it was a stretch to adapt any melodic
influence from it into the score. And even though there is an overlap in
the primary phrasing of the song's main verse and Arnold's primary
theme, that adaptation yields one of the weakest orchestral themes in
the franchise despite the composer's valiant attempts to twist it into
something useful for a variety of emotional settings. The song remains
proof that the composers of the scores for these films really do need to
be involved in the songwriting, despite whatever territorial rights the
performing artists hold over their own songs' writing. Finally, the
lyrics for "Die Another Day" are even more ridiculous (or lame, if you
want the common jargon) than those of other recent Bond films, making
some of even the most flamboyant and embarrassing entries in the series
seem like literary masterpieces by comparison. In sum, this song is
painful to hear at the beginning of the film, an unequivocal disaster
that some viewers joked as being appropriate for the scenes of torture
seen over the rather unconventional opening credits sequence. Luckily,
history hasn't been kind to Madonna's venture into the realm of Bond,
aside, perhaps, from the display of her impressive biceps in her
on-screen fencing cameo in
Die Another Day.
If you can manage to survive the song at the start of
Die Another Day, the score by Arnold is a continuation of the
style of thinking from
The World is Not Enough rather than the
true combination of orchestral jazz and electronic samplings heard in
Tomorrow Never Dies. Arnold didn't really reach the same, strong
merging of such sounds until
Quantum of Solace, and the harsh,
processed attitude of
Die Another Day is alone a killing factor
for a significant number of listeners. Arnold seems to have attempted to
follow the same inspiration that guided Madonna's song, pointing to the
artificially enhanced nature of the villain's body and his impressive
science-fiction technology to justify the obvious technological
abrasiveness to the music. (Never mind that Bond himself is the same
hero, which seems to get lost here.) The famous hovercraft chase scene's
music is chopped up with the almost identical, nonsensical editing that
ruined the song. Portions of the orchestra are artificially cut to
silence for a fraction of a second, causing a stutter-stop motion to the
music that was probably intended to enhance the pace of the action in
the film. Not surprisingly, the technique is nothing more than
obnoxious. In fact, this same technique taints several cues throughout
the score, though to lesser degrees. Arnold seemingly altered the
natural reverberation sound of the orchestra and electronic programming
as well. Notes begin normally, but end artificially and too soon, and
this is continued for countless sequences in some action cues. The
overall sound of the action cues is therefore defined by unnaturally
abrupt edges that frankly sound dumb when involving a full ensemble in
the mix. This ploy is particularly disturbing in the case of a handful
of the larger orchestral cues, for the original unaltered studio
performance has quite a vibrant sound to it. There are a handful of cues
left untampered with, and you can really hear the orchestra's vivacious
power in the percussion of "Some Kind of Hero?" and "Antonov." In other
sections, the orchestra's solo performances seem to be edited not with
cuts to silence, but rather with a simple removal of the reverberation,
causing the score to sound as though it was recording in a tiny
auditorium. Another major problem is Arnold's emphasis on sound effects
in the high treble region; some of the zipping effects, likely to
emulate a laser beam given this plot, are difficult to tolerate for any
length of time. As these looped elements from Arnold progressively
became higher in pitch through the years, the music became more
unpalatable.
If the destruction of the music's flow during the editing
process doesn't bother you in regards to the
Die Another Day
score, then perhaps the imbalance between ensemble and synth array will
put you over the edge. Arnold's delicate, but successful balance between
Barry's traditional, orchestral jazz and his own electronica and techno
tendencies in
Tomorrow Never Dies is lost to the relentless
slashing of the electronic programming here. He simply cannot shake the
constant electronic looping for very long, and whenever he begins to
adopt a purely Barry-like progression of strings or brass, the cue is
cut short by electronic laser sounds or the mad pounding of tinny drum
pad emulations. Absent from this score are some of the five or six
minute juggernaut cues of orchestral and electronic mastery that Arnold
has produced for his other scores in the franchise. Even the lengthier
action sequences in this film switch stylistic genres of music with such
frequency the listener can have difficulty adapting. A few cases of temp
track influences contribute to this problem, especially in the lengthy
finale sequence aboard the plane. The few moments of more low key
character building, such as the Jinx-related cues heard during her
introductory scenes, show hints of more readily accessible and engaging
material, but Arnold never unleashes the full orchestra in these moments
until the very last cue. In terms of creativity in its instrumentation
and rhythms, the score is, in a word, uninspired. It is evidence of a
composer simply going through the motions, and it's not surprising that
many critics and fans were calling for a new composer to accompany the
reboot of the franchise after Brosnan declined to return for the money
offered. Arnold did, to his credit, insert a monumentally mixed choral
sound into
Die Another Day, a rarity for the franchise. The full,
male choral performances are an interesting and perhaps under-explored
method of handling a master villain, though critics still cite an
over-reliance on
Stargate-like sounds in the composer's career.
The lengthy "Antonov" offers a solo female voice as well as an ensemble
chorale, and these occasionally magnificent moments save the score from
being a total waste. A cimbalom-like plucked autoharp is a nicely exotic
touch for one of the villains, and a few stylistic references to Barry's
material for
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (descending baseline
in action cues) and
You Only Live Twice (flowery string romance
for the Jinx theme) are cool, but usually lost in the overall
equation.
Thematically, despite introducing two recurring major
themes,
Die Another Day seems like a one-dimensional score
because of Arnold's almost constant exploration of his main theme
loosely tied, perhaps by coincidence, to Madonna's song. This theme
makes a compelling appearance during the prisoner exchange sequence and
is woven into the fabric of many of the subsequent action cues. Lighter
shades are rare but outstanding when explored, including the fuller
secondary lines exposed beautifully by piano and other softer performers
in "Peaceful Fountains of Desire" and "A Touch of Frost." In its most
ominous applications, mostly in relation to the villains, the theme
faintly foreshadows the deep brass treatment that Arnold would provide
for the Quantum organization a few films later in the franchise. The
score's most interesting specialty instruments are devoted to the
villains, including the use of the accelerating autoharp motif for the
North Koreans. The composer also offers the Norman theme a significant
roll in
Die Another Day, ranging in incarnation from loyal solo
electric guitar strumming to wildly frenetic techno variations. Both
this classic theme and the main theme for the film were arranged into an
intolerable electronic mess for a rejected end credits suite, "James
Bond Will Return," which seems like mostly a regurgitation of the
obnoxious parts of "Hovercraft Chase" repackaged a second time. A
heavily Barry-like, descending string theme for Jinx, introduced in
"Jinx Jordan" and "Jinx & James" before mostly disappearing until "Going
Down Together" at the end, is not as well adapted into the mass of the
score's material, diminishing her character's impact on the music. A few
other secondary themes, some of which quite noble in intent, peek
through in
Die Another Day, sometimes mingling with themes
established by Arnold in previous films. The bass plucking from the
start of the
Goldeneye song is reprised. A descending piano motif
for danger carries over to late action cues. The main theme for
Tomorrow Never Dies is heard on subdued horn at 1:35 into "Kiss
of Life" as a clever reference to Bond's jeopardized career. The pretty
love theme from
The World is Not Enough, reduced to only its
secondary, ascendant phrasing to eliminate that movie's main theme from
it, is heard in this score's final two cues, especially wrapping the
Moneypenny story arc well. Arnold's massive, general villain theme from
the prior two scores returns, exploding at the end of the full version
of "On the Beach" and heard several times thereafter for moments when
villains are shown in their fully overblown, badass mode.
Joining the references to other Brosnan-era scores in the
music for
Die Another Day are several nods to Barry's general
style at specific points, including the well known snare rips that Barry
loved to use while the villains were describing their nasty plans and
the descending baseline of
On Her Majesty's Secret Service under
some of the main theme performances. The problem with these subtle
references, however, is that they were drowned out in the film and
mostly missing from the woeful commercial album released at the time of
the film's debut. Both
Tomorrow Never Dies and
The World is
Not Enough were badly represented by their initial commercial album
offerings. In the case of the latter score, no bootleg was quickly
forthcoming to appease angry collectors. The same was not the case with
Die Another Day, which was spread around in 2-CD bootleg format
within just a few years of its recording. In 2017, roughly the same
film-order presentation of the score as heard on the bootleg was cleaned
up and offered officially by La-La Land Records, which also added a
variety of alternate mixes to its product. The two previous Bond scores
really did have significant, lengthy, and superior material missing from
their initial commercial albums. While the double-CD presentations of
Die Another Day will offer some material that will clear up
Arnold's thematic intents and include some of the less irritating action
material, they really don't improve the appeal of the score by great
margins. There are interesting, short cues that will be worthy of an
Arnold/Bond compilation, but nothing of absolute necessity. The "Kiss of
Life" cue, which includes the keen
Tomorrow Never Dies reference,
builds off of the score's earliest suspense moments with a few minutes
of melodramatic conversational backing. The main theme's elegant
translations onto solo piano in "Peaceful Fountains of Desire" and "A
Touch of Frost" are required listening. The strong action cue "Jinx,
James, and Genes" contains outstanding fragmentary development of the
main theme against the best homage to
On Her Majesty's Secret
Service and finishes with a great performance on trumpets of
Norman's theme at the end; this cue, from 1:42 onward, is undeniably
attractive and often drops the electronic loops to leave the ensemble
alone. A traditional guitar performance of the Norman theme in "Gustav
Graves' Grand Entrance" is interrupted by a terrible, stuttering
performance of Arnold's recurrent villain's theme, this time overwhelmed
by frantic overlays in this performance that are totally ridiculous and
unnecessary.
The cue for Madonna's conveniently sleeveless cameo in
Die Another Day is surprisingly lush and contains no eye-winking
hints of the song. Both "Blades" (alternately "Sword Fight") and
"Bond Gets the Key" use the main theme extensively, the former with
the usual wailing brass and the latter with the autoharp. Arnold gets
cute with "Virtual Reality," ending the cue with an intentional
shutdown of declining pitch and one last guitar strum to show a sense of
humor. It's funny but unlistenable. The subsequent and short "The
Vanish" features an ultra cool blend of the orchestra and techno
elements performing the Norman theme. The glory of
Goldfinger's
wailing brass figures explodes in the shamelessly flamboyant "Bond Goes
to Iceland." The major action piece missing from the original
commercial album is "Ice Palace Car Chase," a generic blend of the
difficult action material heard before (and again in "Switchblades").
All the albums unfortunately include the preceding "Iced Inc.," which
could have been used as a sonic torture device at government detention
camps worldwide. The concluding, symphony-only action cue, "Antonov
Gets It" (mislabeled "Going Down Together" on the bootleg)
deconstructs the recurring villain motif and concludes with a snazzy
tribute to the Norman theme. That classic tune is offered on both albums
in two versions of "Wheelchair Access," the rejected one with tapped
cymbal at the outset a clearly superior recording. The swagger of this
cue is saturating, fragments of the main theme calling out on flutes and
trumpets like a siren against Bond's confident coolness. The longer
albums will also please listeners seeking sentimental endings, the love
theme from
The World is Not Enough finally represented in the
longing "Moneypenny Gets It" and Bond's affair with Jinx in "Going
Down Together" (alternately "Diamonds") with true
You Only Live
Twice intentions. The La-La Land product also features a number of
other alternate takes, highlighted by a smoother conclusion to the
romantic "Peaceful Fountains of Desire" and a pair of softer cues with
the already-minimal synthetic elements removed. It's unfortunate that
some of the action cues could not have been featured with the loops
stripped. Hearing a major cue like "Ice Palace Car Chase," for
instance, with the synthetic elements reduced by 50% to 75% in the mix
would have been a tremendous treat to hear, and there was room on the
album for at least one such inclusion. The remaining film versions of
the cues on the La-La Land album are moderately interesting by
comparison but certainly not vital.
Overall, the expanded presentations available for
Arnold's
Die Another Day are interesting in the whole and
redemptive to some degree, but they ultimately expose the reality that
the music is still the weakest of the composer's five consecutive Bond
scores. The commercial product remains a clearly miserable experience to
suffer, however. Several aspects of the album are unsavory, starting
with the inconsistent mix of the bass elements from track to track, with
gain levels also not normalized. A comparison with the 2017 expanded set
will reveal very different sound quality in certain cues as compared to
the 2002 original, and it may be of interest to die-hard fans that even
the bootleg contains a unique and sometimes superior sound quality. In
terms of contents, there are pieces of the commercial album that are
almost laughable in the context of a Bond franchise that had seen better
times. The Paul Oakenfold remix of the classic Bond theme is sadly
predictable and offers nothing of substance. There is the absence of any
conclusive end credits song or suite on the product. The Cuban-flavored
source cues are barely tolerable; they were rolled into a distinct,
alternate version for that album whereas the actual cues heard in the
film waited for the longer albums. The consistently jarring stutter-step
editing in the early cues will end the listening experience for some
enthusiasts. The album is surprisingly brief, continuing a trend at the
time of shorter albums for each successive Bond film. But it did contain
Madonna's song, which is absent from the 2017 set for licensing reasons.
While such omissions are usually unforgivable, the loss of that song is
a benefit here; there's a reason why people stand around texting and
journey to the lines at the toilets whenever that particular song begins
during Madonna's concerts. Its total disregard for the franchise's
heritage and its unlistenable editing is a waste of Madonna's mature
voice and reduces her to an inflective tone as mousy as that of her hits
of the mid-1980's. In its condensed presentation, and to a lesser extent
on the longer albums, this score has no cinematic sweep, no consistent
action material worthy of the character, and no melodic love theme to
mark the film's place in the rich history of Bond music. It is a
sickening listening experience for which
Tomorrow Never Dies is
the only antidote and, fortunately, the pursuit of a strikingly modern
and edgy attitude for the Bond songs and scores was finally balanced
peacefully in the subsequent
Casino Royale. When soundtracks need
an antidote, you know it's time for them to die on any day.
@Amazon.com: CD or
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- Score as Written for Film: **
- Song as Written for Film: FRISBEE
- Music as Heard on the 2002 Album: *
- Music as Heard on the Bootlegs and 2017 La-La Land Album: **
- Overall: **
Bias Check: |
For David Arnold reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.53
(in 15 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.27
(in 44,392 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The 2002 Warner album's insert contains but no extra information about the
film, score, or song. That product has enhanced CD features, including a movie poster gallery
from Bond's history and content mostly related to the song. The bootlegs feature a wide range
of fan-created art. The insert of the 2018 La-La Land album contains extensive notes about
the score and film.