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| Arnold |
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 a drew greater response 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 and a friendship
he had cultivated with Barry, made him the logical choice. He had also
recorded covers of Bond songs for an album that attracted the attention
of the franchise's producers. 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 aid 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 like.
Arnold become the franchise's regular musical voice
through the Brosnan and early Daniel Craig entries, allowing the stint
with Bond to really define his career alongside a few notable scores for
non-Bond films mixed in between. He continued pushing the synthetic side
of his music for the franchise until a somewhat dissatisfying score for
Die Another Day, the composer pulling back to the better balance
of tradition and electronics in the superior
Casino Royale. He
was obviously keenly aware that the Bond franchise's scores had their
own unique formula while Barry was in the lead, and that sound would
return here at the request of filmmakers who hadn't been entirely
satisfied with the direction Eric Serra had taken with
Goldeneye.
There are times when Arnold's percussion, electronic loops, and
manipulation are excessive, but these moments are restricted to just a
few action cues that are somewhat overwhelmed by sound effects in the
film anyway. 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 entertainingly true and
modern performance of the Norman concept available during the Brosnan
era. This three-minute cue established a standard at the time by which
fans and students of the franchise could worship and study.
Acoustically, the recording is largely flawless when not dominated by
synthetic layering. 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 main
theme is both seductively alluring and strikingly defiant, an easily
memorable aspect of the film.
The main theme for
Tomorrow Never Dies is
incorporated nearly everywhere in the score, itself reduced to
counterpoint duties at times for quick references. In the opening action
sequence of "White Knight" before the opening credits, Arnold introduces
the theme with nobility at 7:10 in between ample development of Norman's
theme. This theme punctuates many of the action sequences with
traditional action style but informs other purposes, too. It's afforded
an Eastern personality in "Kowloon Bay," for instance, before a
romantically monumental statement for strings and bold brass
counterpoint at the resolution of the film. Arnold masterfully
alternates between the primary and secondary sequences of the song's
constructs in his references, helping galvanize the theme's entirety as
the score's identity. A theme for Teri Hatcher's role as the villain's
wife and former Bond lover is provided in only one extended sequence
encompassing several cues 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 echoes to accompany her demise. A deliberate, pounding
motif for the villain, Elliot Carver, and his stealth ship is sparsely
utilized throughout the score, its initial appearance impossible to miss
at 3:55 into "The Sinking of the Devonshire." The idea receives some
intriguing, less obvious exploration in "Underwater Discovery" and
becomes intertwined with the action at the climax. If the themes for
Tomorrow Never Dies have a weakness, it's in the largely
unfocused musical representation for Carver, as well as other villain
elements such as in "Doctor Kaufman." To counter the theme for Carver's
wife earlier in the film, Arnold writes one for Michelle Yeoh's agent
and the Eastern locations of the story. It receives only brief
treatments, 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 idea 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 as well.
Another important aspect of the music for
Tomorrow
Never Dies is its 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,"
more obviously at 0:45 into "Hamburg Break In," and in a few other cues,
he quotes the five-note bass sequence that defined the start of Tina
Turner's song for
Goldeneye, arguably the most memorable element
from the soundtrack of that film. The upbeat militaristic material in
"Okinawa/HALO Jump" harkens back to times when nothing could go wrong
for Bond when naval or air force elements came into play, sometimes
humorously. He did not make the same number of references in his scores
for the subsequent Brosnan Bond films, though he does make a clever
allusion to the title theme for
Tomorrow Never Dies during a
conversational cue after Bond's early rescue in
Die Another Day.
Narratively, this score succeeds brilliantly, applying tone-perfect
attitude through most of the work. The conclusive "All in a Day's Work"
is a monumental release that pulls back aspects of "White Knight" before
its epically romantic final two minutes. In retrospect,
Tomorrow
Never Dies is a much better score than many gave it credit for being
at the time of its release. Some listeners were turned off by the
extensive synthetics and 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 set the stage for the highlights
of
The World is Not Enough and the opening chase sequence in
Casino Royale. For the most part, the balance of mixing in
Tomorrow Never Dies is outstanding, and the gorgeous piano solos
in several cues are testimony to this clarity. The horn performances
late in "Station Break" are particularly splendid. Subsequent Arnold
scores tended to get muddy in their rowdy action passages, especially in
Die Another Day, the nuances not quite a compelling in their
layering.
As anyone can expect, not everything with
Tomorrow
Never Dies went well. First and foremost, the song situation was
ultimately very dissatisfying for both Arnold and Bond fans alike. While
the recording of Arnold's title song by k.d. lang matched the style and
melody of the score with incredible cohesion and effectiveness, the
producers of the film moved it to the end credits and instead 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
Arnold's song was superior and better espoused the spirit of the
franchise, but also because of lang's adeptly sultry 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 initial video game
score for
Tomorrow Never Dies heavily favored 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 mannerisms during the slow-motion sinking and
death sequence, that's not necessarily a negative. (This cue was later
revealed to be a replacement for a less melodramatic alternative.) A
truly major problem with
Tomorrow Never Dies, however, was its
initial 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 album's material had to be prepared
and approved before much of the score had been recorded.
As a result of the recording and album scheduling
mishap, the 1997 album for
Tomorrow Never Dies is missing every
cue from the entire last 40 minutes of the score, including all of the
Eastern-flavored cues and the pivotal "Bike Chase" and "All in a Day's
Work." These omissions, which didn't make sense to consumers at the
time, combined with the replacement of lang's song from the opening
credits, caused Bond fans to go stir crazy immediately. After much fuss
and delay, controversy and discussion, some of the remaining music from
the film was finally made available on a commercial album 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.
The label's quick bankruptcy thereafter caused the album to go out of
print fast. Although the packaging and press kit advertised it as being
"complete," it's actually missing many important moments, including
"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 impactful passages from the first and final twenty
minutes remained missing, including the music between "White Knight" and
the opening song ("Backseat Pilot"). Another major drawback to the
expanded album is the lack of any of the songs appearing on the original
album due to licensing reasons. The eleven-minute interview with Arnold
at the end of the 2000 product is interesting; the questions are
intelligent and the interview is mixed nicely with some of the
composer's cues. But it's not something you'll find yourself listening
to a second time. A better 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 were forced to own both products.
The sound quality on both albums is equally vibrant.
For more than twenty years, hardcore fans of
Tomorrow
Never Dies turned to 2-CD bootlegs that were mostly complete,
featuring the isolated DVD score, the two songs, and bonus material
totaling over 140 minutes in length. Finally, in 2022, the La-La Land
Records label released a 5,000-copy set containing the entirety of
score, source music, and songs in a spectacular presentation that misses
only a Moby remix from the 1997 album. The songs and score are afforded
their longer film versions in the proper chronological order, and more
than half an hour of alternate score tracks are tacked onto the end.
Some of these alternates were the previously released album cuts, though
the first three cues in the score are provided their original forms as
part of Arnold's fascinating demo process with a full ensemble. The
newly released cues on the 2022 set include the rest of the Norman theme
references early in the film, starting with the exciting "Backseat
Pilot" (and intriguing demo variant) bracketed by prominent placements
of the franchise identity. In "MI6/Launch the Fleet," Arnold unleashes
the electric guitar and flute in traditional performances of the Norman
theme as well. A longer version of "Company Car" extends the flute
passages. Elegant suspense toys with the main theme in "You Have a Phone
Call, Mr. Bond" while "Carver and Paris" does the same with the villain
material. The duo of "Printing Press Fight" and "Escape to Hotel" is
overdue for inclusion, the former included in two variants and the
latter slathering on the Norman material in "Company Car" glory. The
film version of "Backseat Driver" dials back some of the obnoxious
electronic distortion in its second half, and "Okinawa/HALO Jump" is a
cheery, militaristic take on the Norman theme, its snare-ripping tone
taken to serious shades in" Grenade," which also features keen allusions
to the Paris theme in its midsection. Meanwhile, "Banner Escape" is akin
to "Bike Chase" in style, and the duo of "Stealth Shoot Out" and "Carver
Gets It" complete the climax's propulsive blend of Norman theme and
Carver's material, the latter cue offering up a muscular version of the
"Goldeneye" song motif at 1:07. Topping off the album is a version of
"Surrender" with a softer, dreamy opening that may have segued fairly
well if it overlapped directly with the last part of "All in a Day's
Work" as one continuous piece. The immensely satisfying 2022 set is, in
totality, a magnificent treatment for arguably the finest Bond score to
ever exist, one that at the very least remains triumphant as the
definitive Arnold entry in the Bond franchise.
@Amazon.com: CD or
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- Music as Written for Film: *****
- Music as Heard on 1997 Album: ***
- Music as Heard on 2000 Album: ****
- Music as Heard on the 2022 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 3.28
(in 44,963 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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