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Post by Admin on Feb 15, 2020 1:00:19 GMT
James Bond was a bit of a mouldy fig when it came to music. There weren’t many things worse, he opined in Goldfinger, than “listening to the Beatles without earmuffs”. The Beatles had the last laugh – 007 presumably had to reach for hearing protection when Paul McCartney was commissioned to write the theme song for Live and Let Die – but for years, the Bond themes pandered to their hero’s tastes, invariably coming from artists who were more likely to be found playing the Talk of the Town than the Marquee club. That changed dramatically in the 80s. The more anachronistic the character of Bond became, the more the producers attempted to appeal to a younger audience through music. In recent years, they’ve tried everything from grunge (the late Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell) to Madonna to an awkward duet between Jack White and Alicia Keys. But even so, commissioning Billie Eilish seems striking: it tells you as much about the 18-year-old’s ascent to the kind of artist your grandparents have heard of as it does the Bond franchise’s desire to appear hip. Like her cover of Yesterday at the Oscars ceremony, No Time to Die sees Eilish taking a respectful approach. There’s a sense that this may all be part of a concerted effort to broaden her appeal to more mature audiences. It’s a moot point whether such an effort is really necessary – her multi-platinum debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? won praise from quarters that don’t ordinarily take much interest in music that appeals to teenage girls – but either way, the glitchy electronics of that record have vanished here, replaced by tasteful orchestration and nods to Bond tunes past. There’s a vague hint of the opening of Diamonds Are Forever about the intro, an interpolation from Monty Norman’s James Bond theme and a guitar part that carries a distinct echo of Vic Flick’s iconic twang. Yet Eilish has stamped her own identity on the song. The tendency for vocalists tackling a Bond theme is to belt it out, as if in homage to the most famous Bond singer of the lot: Shirley Bassey is known for many things, but subtle understatement isn’t among them. Eilish, however, opts for her standard close-mic approach in which surliness does battle with vulnerability.
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Post by Admin on Feb 15, 2020 18:59:21 GMT
James Bond is Old Hollywood’s last man standing, the rare film franchise from the ’60s that can still do numbers in the 21st century. People will always show up for a meticulous crime thriller, for a hero who never seems to sweat or worry. A character as adept at cheating death as 007 needs a soundtrack every bit as breathless and reckless, so the outrageous Bond theme has also endured, reimagining the treacly, orchestrated big-band pop from the era that spawned 1962’s Dr. No across an ever-changing musical landscape. In the ’70s, Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” and Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does It Better” were massive ballads and successful chart hits. Things got dicey in the ’80s, though, when the series tried to get hip, calling on new wave acts like like A-Ha and Duran Duran, whose stringent rhythms and synthetic sonics were a weird fit for longtime composer John Barry’s symphonic accompaniment. Since the ’90s, the Bond theme has been a tug-of-war between legacy and modernity. If it cuts one way for too long, it springs back in the other direction. Garbage’s Shirley Manson brought trip-hop sensuality, pop smarts, and noirish charm to “The World Is Not Enough.” Then Madonna and Mirwais shredded a string arrangement and scattered the shrapnel over the vital disco jam “Die Another Day.” In later years, Chris Cornell, Alicia Keys, Adele, and Sam Smith belted to glory on “You Know My Name,” “Another Way to Die,” “Skyfall,” and “Writing’s on the Wall,” although the last two came up a little stuffy trying to revisit the glamour of powerhouse U.K. vocalist Shirley Bassey’s iconic Goldfinger and Diamonds Are Forever anthems. Tapping Billie Eilish to do the theme for the forthcoming No Time to Die is another vote of confidence in her voice and a signal that Eon Productions, the company instrumental in the production of 25 Bond films in nearly 60 years, is looking toward the future again. (True Detective director Cary Joji Fukunaga getting tapped as the first American to helm an Eon Bond film seems to follow that same wisdom.) It’s a perfect marriage, another prestige token for a young artist who’s been racking them up lately, and a solid shot at chart traction after Sam Smith’s Academy Award–winning Spectre theme bricked on the Hot 100.
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Post by Admin on Feb 16, 2020 6:16:38 GMT
Justin Bieber seems to see himself in Billie Eilish -- whom he says he wants to protect at all costs from going through the same sort of hell he did as a rising child star. Biebs sat down with Beats 1's Zane Lowe for a new interview to plug his new album, 'Changes,' and during the convo ... Billie was brought up. Justin says he wants to let her do her thing, but also notes ... if she ever needs him, he's just a phone call away. http://instagram.com/p/B8j4oBvlTQw JB even tears up talking about her, adding that he wants to protect her and shelter her from the sorts of experiences he went through growing up. It's incredibly touching. As you know ... Justin's been through a lot over the years, including arrests, lawsuits, self-admitted substance abuse, depression, relationship woes ... and on and on.
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Post by Admin on Feb 19, 2020 20:57:36 GMT
Billie Eilish - No Time To Die (Live From The BRIT Awards, London)
At The BRIT Awards (basically Britain’s version of The Grammys), Billie Eilish performed the theme song for the next Bond movie, No Time to Die. On the one hand, Eilish is a perfectly sensible choice for the Bond theme song. She’s one of the most popular recording artists on the planet right now, and the job typically goes a really popular recording artist.
I’ve listened to “No Time to Die” a bunch over the past week, and taken on its own, the song has really grown on me. I think it could be a top-tier song for the way it uses Bond-infused, heavy instrumentation as the background while never overshadowing what Eilish personally brings to the song, which allows her to make her own rather than trying to emulate what others artists have done with their Bond songs. The reason I haven’t placed it yet in our Bond Songs Ranked article is that I’m very curious to see how it plays in the larger film. “No Time to Die” sounds pretty melancholy, so I’m curious to see how it fits with the opening credits of the movie in terms of setting the tone.
As for this performance at The BRIT Awards, it’s very good! I kind of wish we had seen at the Oscars since that would have been a cool way to debut the song, but so it goes. For Eilish fans, I’m sure you’ve probably already seen this performance, but here it is again! I’m excited to see how the song plays when No Time to Die hits theaters on April 10th.
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Post by Admin on Feb 24, 2020 1:08:56 GMT
Daniel Craig has made it as clear as he can that No Time to Die is his final movie as James Bond. Which is not to say the character of James Bond is dying even if Craig's Bond does find time to die in this 2020 film. Fans have been speculating madly about who could be the next Bond, and the young woman who is singing Daniel Craig out the door already has her choice. Billie Eilish wants the next James Bond to be a popular Marvel star who is famous for playing a villain in the Marvel Cinematic Universe ... and probably hopes you blocked out the memory of him playing another Marvel character in a Fox movie. Singer Billie Eilish was quick with her answer on Capital Breakfast when asked if she had a pick for the next James Bond: Honestly, Michael B. Jordan would kill that shit. I think he’d kill it.
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