On the whole, his score was fairly traditional, but for the pre-title sequence Hamlisch looked to the charts in 1976. Hamlisch had won three Oscars in 1974 for the Scott Joplin adaptation score to The Sting and the dramatic score and title song to The Way We Were. 1977 saw John Barry unable to work in the UK due to tax issues, so in came Marvin Hamlisch for The Spy Who Loved Me.
From the opening gun barrel where the synth replaced the usual guitar, this was a fresh new approach for Bond music, and to this day it’s regarded as one of the best scores in the series. So Barry followed suit and added this futuristic sound to his already dynamite soundscape. In 1968, electronic music pioneer Wendy Carlos - who would go on to design the score to Tron - recreated the sacred music of baroque luminary Johann Sebastian Bach with a Moog synthesizer, resulting in the smash-hit record Switched-On Bach. Interestingly, one of the biggest reimaginings of Bond’s sound came from John Barry himself, who was given free rein for 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and added to the mix an instrument that had just been launched into the collective consciousness. But the reception to those changes is key to understanding exactly what the audience wants from the music of 007, for better or worse. Some of it has had an effect over the years. He’s in the same world we live in every day, where we are constantly surrounded by an enormously vast palette of musical sounds, so it makes sense that some of that would influence his music. The difference with Bond is that he’s only been to space once, and never takes the odd hike to Mordor.
Imagine seeing the majesty of the lunar space station in 2001: A Space Odyssey without the intoxicatingly dreamy waltz of Johann Strauss’ “The Blue Danube,” or the lush green of the Shire sans Howard Shore’s earthy melodies in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
Music may provide an unspoken emotional undercurrent, but it’s also a critical element in drawing the audience into the world of the film and keeping them there, especially if that world is unfamiliar. The bigger debate, however, is whether that’s a realistic expectation or a healthy one. Barry also established a stylistic template for the scores, and even after 50-plus years of Bond, that brass-driven pomp is what fans have come to expect from whoever is chosen to compose the latest soundtrack. Of course, there’s the James Bond theme itself, Monty Norman and John Barry’s swaggering and muscular blunt instrument that accompanies his incredible feats. The same consideration applies to the music of the Bond franchise.
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