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Goodbye, John Barry


Sylph

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He really was unique, and I know that even said like that it sounds like a cliché. He defined the Bond sound, d'oh, and it will never stop being the sound that is expected from a Bond movie. Unless some other genius comes along, which is doubtful at this stage. I think he said it was a 'pleasant annoyance' to be known primarily for that.

Why Out of Africa as the music of your parents' dinner party? ^_^

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It certainly does. But then, all 3 of Shirley Bassey's Bond themes are real standouts. And God help me, Rita Coolidge's "All Time High" from Octopussy is also one of my top favorites. I think the ones done by Gladys Knight, Sheryl Crow, and A-ha are the bottom of the barrel.

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And he was Stephen Sondheim's mentor and main music teacher--Sondheim has talked a lot about their work together and all he learned from him (each day they'd spend several hours with a classical piece and then several hours with a popular piece--and Sondheim got his love for minimalism from him).

Good piece on him http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/arts/music/30babbitt.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB

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To be fair it was the first one that started the bombastic theme tune over naked lady silhouette opening credit thing--Dr No never had one, and From Russia With Love's lovely title theme wasn't used for the openign credits--so maybe they weren't sure about it yet?

John Barry's film work reminds me a lot of his contemporary Michel Legrand's film work, especially since getting a box set of his stuff--I guess it was fitting Legrand did the non MGM "official" Bond film Never Say Never Again (though it's not one of his better scores).

(SFK I love moonraker's theme too--almost makes up for them making such a crap movi)

And I think that NYT article is right that the best overall Barry Bond soundtrack (not simply title song) was You Only Live Twice. As a kid I loved some of the lesser score pieces from it like Capsule in Space

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