A friend just asked me for my list if the Top 10 James Bond songs, so here is my opinion, and I urge you to give each a listen:
1. Thunderball (Tom Jones) My favorite, for its summation of Bond himself in its lyrics. That and Jones belting it out like his life depended on it. This is the one that I break out on the rare occasions when I got to karaoke.
2. Tomorrow Never Dies (Sheryl Crow) I love the mournful quality of this one, and I cannot restrain myself from wailing along with the chorus. (Yes, I can hit the notes.)
3. You Only Live Twice (Nancy Sinatra) Evocative and haunting, the perfect theme for Bond's adventure in Japan.
4. Goldfinger (Shirley Bassey) Brassy and bombastic, this is perhaps the definitive Bond theme tune, though over the course of almost sixty years it has become something of a self-parody. A classic nonetheless.
5. A View To A Kill (Duran Duran) An absolute banger and arguably the best thing about the movie. The instrumental version on the B-side of the single also slaps.
6. You Know My Name (Chris Cornell) Fraught with tension, the perfect theme tune with which to reboot the franchise.
7. Where Has Everybody Gone (Pretenders) The oft-overlooked song heard during the end credits of THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, this should have been the lead song rather than that piece of shit titular number by one-hit wonder a-ha.
8. Skyfall (Adele) They had me at Adele, but her gift for heartbreaking vocals lends itself perfectly to one of the more somber entries in the series, especially considering some of the events in the story.
9. Kingston Calypso (Byron Lee and The Dragonaires) One of the many evocative Jamaican numbers from the first Bond outing.
10. We Have All The Time In The World (Louis Armstrong) If you have seen ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, you know why this made the roster.
