The Best of Bond...James Bond (CD, Oct-2008, EMI)

IF YOU ENJOY BOND, THE CD IS A NO BRAINER ! EXCELLENT MUSIC, EXCELLENT ARTISTS. " FOR YOUR EARS ONLY "

To enjoy this album, one has to have an extremely varied taste in music or, more likely, be a James Bond fan from way back. There is everything from the lounge lizard (Matt Monro, Rita Coolidge) to the lay back (Carly Simon, Sheryl Crow), from soul (Louis Armstrong, Gladys Knight) to belter (Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, Tina Turner) to heavy metal (Duran Duran). Most of the songs have gotten radio air time but only when the companion movie was in theatres. Probably because while the songs are melodic, the lyrics tend to be silly (I'm looking for you "like the Moonraker boat" or "Time to give it a try, live or let die") or so specific to the movie title as to make no sense without it("Goldfinger", "Thunderball", "A View to a Kill"). The exceptions, songs that do get airtime today: "Nobody Does it Better", "For Your Eyes Only", and a recent reworking by Kanye West of "Diamonds are Forever". Among the forgotten songs,there's a lot that's good on this album, despite silly or movie-specific lyrics. My favorites are the "James Bond Theme"(instrumental), "From Russia with Love", "You Only Live Twice", "Moonraker", "All Time High" (I guess they couldn't come up with a song about an Octopussy) "The World is Not Enough", and k. d. lang's "Surrender". Again, this album is mostly for the Bond fan, but by no means a bad collection.