Soundtrack

Overview:
David Arnold's latest soundtrack is a well composed entry to the Bond musical world. Continuing in his style of electronic and techno sounding scores, Arnold manages to get the Bond theme into almost every track: something that has been missing from his first efforts. Additionally, his use of the theme varies from modern sounding during the opening tracks to almost John Barry-esque in others. However, I still prefer John Barry's classic scores to Arnold's soundboard and synthesizer created pieces. While some parts of the score are inspired and truly reminiscent of past movies, much of it sounds like it is taken from the GoldenEye 007 video game.

Madonna's Theme Song:
The first time I heard this song I hated ever minute of it. It is a trendy song that sounds like it belongs in a dance club or on a techno CD. While the song itself has grown on me, partly due to nonstop radio airplay, I still feel that it has no place playing over the title sequence in a Bond film. Theme songs are supposed to be big, grand ballets that evoke memories of theme songs passed. This song only evokes memories of going out to party.

Track Specifics:
Bond vs. Oakenfold-This track in particular reminded me of the GoldenEye 007 game for the Nintendo 64 due to its mechanical sound and beat.

One The Beach-Of all the tracks, this one sounded the most like a copy of Tomorrow Never Dies. The beat and the instruments seemed like a carbon copy of some of the Stealth Ship scenes.

Welcome to Cuba-This may be one of my favorite tracks on the CD. With its Latin flavor this piece captures the atmosphere of Cuba perfectly.

Touch of Frost-A very interesting beat can be heard throughout this track. Also, it starts out with some very delicate notes and riffs then builds up to a strong finish, suggesting the same for the character.

Icarus-Much like the ledgend the weapon is based on, this track has a very mythical quality to it. The live chorus chanting in either Greek or Latin in the background adds a great touch and a lot of tension.

The Enhanced CD:
With Madonna's music video and other extras, this is being touted as an Enhanced CD. However, once I scratched the surface I quickly realized that the interactive part of the CD was nothing special and, in some cases, was more trouble than it was worth. Most of the features required an internet connection to access movies and music online in Windows Media Player format. The problem with this is that the videos skipped a lot and had to keep pausing to buffer more data. Even once they loaded properly they were not high-resolution. Also, the non-Internet features of the CD are extremely limited and consist of a few photo galleries with extremely clunky navigation. In short, don't waste your time with the enhanced portion of the soundtrack.

Order the soundtrack from:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk

Die Another Day Sections:
My Review All of my thoughts on every aspect of the film.	The Characters Photos and bios of the main characters.	The Gadgets All about the gadgets used in the film	DAD Vs. Formula An evaluation of how DAD follows the Bond formula
Discuss DAD Talk about the movie on the message board	Posters A gallery of all DAD movie posters	New Archives All DAD news from start to finish	Soundtrack A review of the DAD soundtrack
Royal Premire Photo and news coverage of the Royal Premire	Universal Exports' Related Pages Firsts Tidbits Gadgets Bond Girls Henchmen Villains