I'm not sure that it really evokes the theme and spirit of a film about a man who visits an amateur dentist who reveals that he has been setting up an increasingly intricate series of worldwide criminal conspiracies all for the purpose of... revealing that he is a bit jealous his foster-brother was better at skiing when they were 14 - whilst the foster-brother sits there awkwardly wondering who on earth this weirdo is, why he has a cat, and why he took up dentistry as a hobby. The theme from Monty Python would have suited better! :-)

They weren’t allowed to use it because Radiohead performed it once, when they weren’t supposed to because the movie wasn’t released so they had to choose a different one

@@MC-pb2ph I think you might be referring to "Man Of War", which was written during the sessions Radiohead did recording The Bends. Eon rejected it because it wasn't written specifically for the film (largely because that would disqualify it for a 'Best Original Song' nomination). So Radiohead asked for another chance and actually took time off recording "A Moon Shaped Pool" to make "Spectre". Eon ultimately rejected it because Eon thought it was too melancholy - though Barbara Broccoli claims it arrived too late and didn't fit the title sequence.

@anon did you catch Spectre’s visual intro?

I’m actually annoyed that it’s playing in the background during the Casino Royale section. Wellp, moving on..

Agreed 100% , White Stripes was Tripe.

Yeah it would have been so epic. Sure they maybe wanted something more modern but I still don't understand why they chose that horrible, lazy song over her. It's like they couldn't find any good song for the film and chose the last minute. Anything would have been better.

@@teijaflink2226 - one story I heard was that Amy Winehouse was scheduled to sing the theme, but died just before recording. So they went for 'option 2'.

100%

I am a huge Radiohead fan and that recording is unbelievable!! A little too dark for opening credits - while I think that recording they made is great, I prefer Adele’s theme.

@@complicatedtime Radiohead's song wasn't written for Skyfall but for Spectre. It would have replaced Sam Smith's song Writing's on the wall

@@joee8278 yes. You’re right.

@@joee8278 and that would have been a massive improvement!

I prefer Radiohead's Man of War which I believe was written for GoldenEye.

I think it might even have made the film a better experience somehow

Check Spotify. There’s a playlist 😃

And it should be called 'For Your Ears Only'

@@abrahamcambridge1250 brilliant😆😆😆

Just find the songs and make a playlist.

Yes! I knew I heard that somewhere!

Is it just me or is the main drumbeat "When the Levee Breaks?" It could be another drummer using the same beat, but making the vibration of the drums slow down would be quite a trick.

Moore exciting?

@@Rougarou99 😆

@@Rougarou99 badum-fcking-tsss!

yes indeed Shenna Easton was so lucky getting the Bond gig. From pub singer to a bond theme in less than a year

I actually like the version they went with. It felt smoother to me.

Definitely and much better than the one by Sheryl Crow.

I put it on my top three of all times, after Goldfinger and Goldeneye...

It’s an absolutely gorgeous song. Her voice is perfect

Totally agree

I remember being far more disappointed that Pulp's far edgier Tomorrow Never Lies wasn't the theme song! :-)

Finally someone else thinks like i do. A reworked Kiss and Tell would have been a fantastic 80`s early 90`s bond theme

@@EnglishDanReviews Great choice of song, Absolutely agree. I also was thinking “Take a Chance on Me” sounds very Bond-like, although the lyrics may have to be tweaked somewhat.

I agree. My favorite song is "Love is the Drug" but I doubt that would have made a good Bond song, however given other James Bond songs, you never can tell. Hahahaha

Agree completely.

That's definitely one of the biggest crimes -- but the single biggest was never having Portishead do one. Bryan Ferry would be a close second.

Apparently they only wanted the singer Deborah to sing the theme,and she refused to do it without the band so they went for another singer and theme altogether.

I love the song and totally agree. The early PSB stuff was really good.

Somewhere in an alternate universe without a writer's strike there's a competent Quantum of Solace film w Shirley Bassey's song and coherent editing.

@@HipHopHappens that would have been nice

David Arnold has actually debunked that the Shirley Bassey song was intended for the film. He wrote it for Basseys new album witch he produced.

The lyrics Bassey wrote also fit the theme of Quantum of Solace better than the lyrics of Another Way to Die. In case you've forgotten, the emotional setup for QoS is of Craig's Bond seeking retribution for the death of Vesper, the woman he fell in love with in Casino Royale who was blackmailed into betraying him, in order to fill the void he feels after losing her, and I think the lyrics of the intro song for the movie ought to reflect the depressed loneliness with a strong hint of bitterness - all from the perspective of Bond. And that's exactly what the lyrics for "No Good About Goodbye" do. The lyrics for Another Way to Die are about what many Bond songs lament over - an unreliable yet charming daredevil casanova who finds more pleasure in killing his enemies than engaging with his lover, which could be appreciated, but doesn't really fit with the movie's emotional themes, but I guess since White and Keys were going for something intense as they combined their strengths in garage rock and R&B (I think the genres blend as poorly as it sounds they would on paper itself), they didn't want to write about the wishy washy themes of loneliness. Fine. Then at least write the lyrics about vengeance, even if QoS may not feel serviceable as a personal vendetta story. edit: in conclusion, Quantum of Solace is quite a different Bond movie, and the lyrics for it's intro song deserve to treat it as such.

@@GlennEdell *Which.

They were both great IMO.

@@robbelliii No the song was shit lol , They were right to go with Aha

I agree. It just has that classic era Bond feel to it. A very good Bond theme, in my opinion

It would have been a perfect ending song for Casino Royale, since that's what James says to Vesper Lynd: "...I'm yours".

Way, way too good for the actual movie though. QOS is hideous.

It sounds great

That was the title. But a typo error was made and it ended up as being "Dies".

Tomorrow never *_DIES_* *_DIES_* *_DIES_* *_DIES_* !!!!

Fell asleep, sorry, you were saying?

@@garfieldsmith332 It was actually a fax artifact. Danjaq/Eon faxed "Tomorrow Never Lies" to MGM, but somehow it came out of MGM's fax machine as "Tomorrow Never Dies"; MGM approved it, and the producers decided to go with it rather than tell MGM that wasn't the title they wanted. (Edit: "Tomorrow Never Lies" does indeed fit the plot better; it was intended to be the motto of Jonathan Pryce's paper "Tomorrow".)

@@richellebrittain2127 Thanks for the update. I guess it could be called a Faxo.😊

It sounds like something that the Whose Line is it Anyway Cast would have come up with for a singing game. "Do a James Bond theme in the style of Johnny Cash"

Shirley Bassey could sing the Yellow pages and sound beautiful.

It's very "Ghost Riders in the Sky".

Absolutely. It's a great song, it really is! It would be perfect for the Lone Ranger! For James Bond, no.

This Is Hardcore sounds way more like a Bond theme

Their cover of "All Time High" was amazing too

I'm not sure a song about watching porn in hotel rooms is Bond theme stuff! Musically though, yeah, you've definitely got a point. It's a wonderful song on a cruelly disparaged album, an album that I love dearly. Mind you, I think U2's Pop is pretty great too so my opinion is probably best ignored.

True, they should've given her that last song.

I found it unmemorable.

@@ThreadBomb 🤷‍♂

quantum of Solace just doensn't feel bondish, neither song nor movie. more like a Jason Bourne

Didnt Warwick do a version of the song ?

@@speedracer1945 Yes

Yes! This totally sounds like a Bond theme!

Maby that's becaus swan lee are danish on so are the creators of hitman

He didn't even mention it so not everyone seem to agree or like the song.

Blondie fell short and do not care for that Alice Cooper arrangement.

It's the best bond theme I've ever heard. The references in it are too good. What a banger.

@@dereklewis4321 Totally agree

@@patriceesela5000 need a new bond movie that has the same syllable count as "the world is not enough" so we can re purpose this song for a proper movie.

@@dereklewis4321 😄😄😄sounds like a plan

I thought I was hearing things when I heard "Kiss kiss bang bang" in the lyrics. Great song.

Was just thinking the same thing! Supremacy would’ve been an epic Bond theme.

It was completely unofficial. Supremacy was recorded after Casino Royale. Matt wished they would want it for Quantum of Solace. By the time Skyfall was in the works, the song was outdated.

@@eTORtaCHito It was actually recorded after QoS too. Concretely at the time when Skyfall was made. The drummer actually declared they want Supremacy for the Skyfall theme song

@@xyzdgthereal I love Muse and Supremacy is awesome but would've worked better for QoS honestly...

@@eTORtaCHito true. And one condition MGM has regarding the songs is that all the submissions have to be an original song.

I wholeheartedly agree. And I'm not even an Alice Cooper fan. But then again, "Baby Shark" sung in belches and armpit farts would also have been better. (However, the coda that starts, "His eye may be on you or me..." was actually really good. The rest was pure cringe, and I felt that way as a kid when it came out.)

That would've been better than Lulu's screeching.

And a great game too

What a missed opportunity

Not exactly. David Arnold wrote the song before Winehouse died. He often did, recording his version and then using the more popular version. He did it for “Tomorrow Never Dies” with k.d. Lang’s “Surrender” He did it with “The World Is Not Enough” with Scott Walker’s “Only Myself To Blame” When Winehouse was clearly not going to happen it was too late to substitute Bassey’s song because they already committed to putting it on her Solo album coming out the next year. It’s said Winehouse DID complete the song but her producer kept it under wraps for one reason or another. Jack white and Alicia keys were probably the latest song to be added to a movie (Thunderball also was done pretty late)

@@ozdeveraux2082 Arnold has claimed he didn't write it for QOS, but you hear the tiniest bit of it in the film at 32:47.

@@jamesnorman4035 he clearly did

The late Amy fits perfectly with the Bond franchise's British aesthetic

I didn't like that.

I really like Alice's Man With The Golden Gun

They could have put it in the end credits. Love Alice's version.

Because it's not the 1970s anymore and they went with something more modern and harder hitting, rightfully so.

Shirley had the superior song, but maybe it was too familiar from the direction they were taking bond then.

SWAN LEE was phenomenal. Reminds me of M83 & lead vocalist Susanne Sundfor who recorded that sumptuous Oblivion theme song.

I agree. I listened to it for the first time, and I really like it! The lyrics are perfect, too. I read that the reason it was rejected was because it was considered ''too dark". That's a cop out!

It's an interesting experiment, but doesn't really fit Bond. It's too soft and experimental. I'd say neither was a good choice

I thought that musically; the radiohead song was better - but Thom Yorke's falsetto vocals were almost impossible to understand.

edit: TL;DR: To agree with Mattchester, while I strongly believe that while Radiohead's distinguished Bond intro theme doesn't deserve to be the intro for Spectre, it would have been the perfect setup for Bond's emotional headspace in the beginning of Quantum of Solace. Long reply: While I do think Radiohead's Spectre is the superior song to Writing's On The Wall, in the context of a contemporary Bond theme, I agree with Mattchester, because I believe it might be a bit too ahead of its time. I personally think if you slightly change the lyrics to play on the words in the title of Quantum of Solace instead of Spectre, Radiohead's Spectre's distinct nature would have fit in a Bond movie that was trying to be just as uniquely candid and dark as it's intro theme, like Quantum of Solace. I don't want to get bogged down in the music theory or lyrical poetry, but Radiohead's Spectre could be interpretted to describe an emotional void after being both betrayed by and secluded from a loved one, which is exactly how Craig's Bond feels at the end of Casino Royale and supposedly the majority of Quantum of Solace (although the movie is so mediocrely made it's not really obvious outside of Craig's honest attempt at expressing it - which does carry the movie for me, but good acting can't surpass mediocre production).

I'd prefer white noise over that dreadful crap. Just about the only Bond theme I actively dislike.

Yes, it sounds very Bondish and Blondieish at the same time

Radiohead arguably had their heyday 15/20 years prior to Spectre, and Sam Smith was a current, big selling, artist at the time, who was getting a lot of airtime on radio and music video channels. Seems like there’s more to the choice of song than musical merit - especially as airtime for the song is a good marketing push for the film. Not that I personally mind Sam Smith’s song. Though I am in two minds as to whether it’s really all that suitable for a Bond theme. It definitely doesn’t fit the usual mould.

John McGrady, Their heyday was 15/20 years prior to Spectre? Really? Even if that assertion isn't factually incorrect, the song they produced should be the only consideration, which in comparison with Smith's commercial piffle, is leagues ahead. Aside from which, by your reasoning, no entry from an individual artist (or band) that's basically an unknown one to any kind of sizable audience, should ever have a shot. Is that what your proposing, as well?

@@mitchellmelkin4078 it’s not what I’m proposing. It does seem to be the commercial reality for Eon though, whose purpose is to make money. What/who is “of the moment” and more likely to shift copies and effectively market the film seems to be given a lot of weight when Eon decide on a title song. I would make very different decisions to Eon, but I’m not in charge. They’ve been making decisions like this for 60 years now, and seem to be doing alright though - so what do i know?

@@mitchellmelkin4078 Radiohead's commercial peak was surely late 90s/early 00s, although they remain very popular now, so from a commercial point of view it makes sense to pass them over for Sam Smith. And their purple period ended in 2007, for my money. Other than this magnificent song, I don't think much of anything they've done since In Rainbows.

Glad you liked! 🤣 Thanks for the shout out!

I love Tina Turner's rendition of "Goldeneye" too. I can't imagine the film without it.

Absolutely, K D and David Arnold were robbed. I hated the Sheryl Crow one at the time. I've grown to quite like it now that I've found an instrumental version, but it's more of a theme for a James Bond rip off film than a real Bond.

Supremacy off the 2nd Law album was absolutely a Bond theme. No one can convince me otherwise.

I think it had to come down to Alicia Keys & Jack White being more marketable names. If you go through the Craig era, it seems a bias toward big names at the time is pretty strong. Cornell, Keys/White, Adele, Smith, & Eilish were all at or near the peak of their success when they did their Bond song. It seems the producers just didn’t want to go for lesser known artists and make them niche “Bond songs” instead of fairly mainstream hits you could hear on the radio that also happen to be Bond credit songs. “Forever” is unmistakably attached to a Bond movie (wedging “quantum of solace” into the lyrics, the brief clip of Craig’s dialogue, the throwback Bassey-style), whereas the 5 actual Craig era songs all could double as being another marketable hit from their artists’ albums I agree that “Forever” is a better song (and WAY better Bond song) than “Another Way to Die”, and QoS would be better for it having been the choice (I also think they should’ve extended the intro sequence all the way through to Bond shooting at the screen when he kills the double agent while hanging from the rope and doing another 4th wall gun barrel into the credits like Casino Royale did)

@@YankeeBlues21 Yeah agree, good explanation, makes sense 👍 Afterall you never hear 'the man with the golden gun' on radio 😂 Yet although we don't hear 'Diamomds are forever' much nowadays and although the title itself is a film reference it is a generic enough theme to be radio friendly and is seen as a classic song in it's own right and stands on it's own as a song. Guess as you say big/well known names with songs that go well in radio air time that fit in with the artists usual repetiore. 🙂

For real! I couldn't tell if they wrote if for bond since it's so good

@@botanicus2921 was written for Skyfall but not picked apparently. Instantly sounds like a Bond song

Typical of the broccolis. Skip over something great for something mediocre

@@triplr3777 not necessarily mediocre, but something trendy. Same for Spectre. Adele & Sam Smith were more trendy than Muse & Radiohead when the films were released (which is a shame).

I came here looking for this song... when it was lacking, I came to the comments - thank you for not letting me down, Hairy Welder =)

It would have been a cool bond tune though. I always thought it's bond-esque long before I knew it came out of a bond demo.

@@florisvandenberg7424 Always enjoyed Pet Shop Boys

Nice! I should really check out this band some more!

Very good point! Every song on this list has its own strange circumstances.

With different lyrics maybe

Trippin. Another Way To Die is probably one of the best Bond songs. Sam Smiths Writing's On The Wall was the worst Craig song ever.

I'm a big fan of Another Way to Die. I sort of get the hate in that it doesn't attempt a Bond sound, but I'd say the same about LALD and a few others.

Was it ever intended as a Bond theme, as the lyrics are about Neil Tennant's boyhood in a Catholic School?

@@davidjames579 They said so themself, and I heard that been mentioned for years. And the style and guitar are very in the Bond style.

Jagger?