The Best of Bond - Original Soundtrack

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had purchased this album on special. There are so many great Bond themes here to enjoy!
Of course the album starts with the unmistakeable John Barry (or is it Monty Norman?) James Bond theme where every male who hears it immediately feels stronger, smarter and suaver and makes every woman wish it was true!
The big, brassy voice of Bond is Shirley Bassey who is the only artist to ever contribute multiple songs to the Bond repertoire, with three entries, Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever, and Moonraker.
While they have great songs, some of the other female vocalists aren't a match to Shirley Bassey, such as Carly Simon, Sheena Eastman, Rita Coolidge and Gladys Knight. Tina Turner, though, gives a pretty great performance for the title song from Goldeneye.
Over the years, the producers have always tried to have the current stars of the music industry provide the theme songs. A couple of examples that have only grown on me in time are Duran Duran's A View To A Kill and the better of the two, a-ha's The Living Daylights.
The great Louis Armstrong provides his last ever recording with the poignant 'We Have All The Time In The World' from George Lazenby's only outing as Bond, 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service'.

Paul McCartney and Wings gives us 'Live and Let Die' from Roger Moore's first movie as Bond.
Then we have the velvety vocals of Matt Monro with 'From Russia With Love' and Tom Jones with 'Thunderball'. Perhaps we need to go back to this level of class and employ someone like Michael Bublé for the next Bond theme?
We are also treated to the very naughty lyrics from Lulu for 'The Man With The Golden Gun'. "He comes just before the kill!" Oh behave!
There are a couple of modern Bond themes which I actually love. There is 'The World Is Not Enough' from the band Garbage who are anything but and the lovely Sheryl Crow with the title from 'Tomorrow Never Dies'. There is a later version of this album which also includes a second song from this movie by K.D.Lang called 'Surrender'. Of course I bought the track off iTunes to complete the set!
Lastly there are a couple of modernized takes on the Bond theme, which you can either take or leave.
So that's that! A brilliant compilation and fully recommend Bond fans pick up. Make sure you get the updated version though!