 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "A View to a Kill" soundtrack – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(November 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| A View to a Kill | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Soundtrack album by | ||||
| Released | 1985 | |||
| Length | 38:23 | |||
| Label | EMI (UK) Capitol (US) | |||
| James Bond soundtrack chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Singles from A View to a Kill | ||||
| ||||
A View to a Kill is the 1985 soundtrack for thefilm of the same name, the 14th instalment in theJames Bond film series.
The theme song "A View to a Kill", was written byJohn Barry andDuran Duran, and was recorded in London with a 60-piece orchestra. "A View to a Kill" is the most successfulBond theme to date. In 1986 Barry and Duran Duran were nominated for theGolden Globe Award for Best Original Song at the43rd Golden Globe Awards.
Duran Duran was chosen to do the song after bassistJohn Taylor (a lifelongBond fan) approached producerCubby Broccoli at a party, and somewhat drunkenly asked "When are you going to get someonedecent to do one of your theme songs?"[1][2]
The single was released in May 1985, and on 13 July it hit number one on the U.S.Billboard Hot 100 chart, and as of 2024[update] remains the only Bond theme to do so. On 25 May, it made it to number two in theUK Singles Chart, also a record for Bond themes until "Writing's on the Wall" bySam Smith from thesoundtrack toSpectre made it to number one in 2015. Theb-side was an instrumental piece orchestrated by John Barry, titled "A View to a Kill (That Fatal Kiss)" which appeared on the soundtrack album as "Bond MeetsStacey (A View to a Kill)". The song was the last track that the original five members of Duran Duran recorded together until 2001.
The video for the single was directed by the duoGodley & Creme, with shots of the band at theEiffel Tower intercut with scenes from the movie, so that it appears thatJames Bond (Roger Moore) andMay Day (Grace Jones) are participating in the same storyline. The lead singer ends the video with a parody of James Bond, introducing himself as "Bon.Simon Le Bon."
During the opening pre-title sequence, a cover version of the 1965Beach Boys song "California Girls", performed by Gidea Park (a tribute band), is used during a chase in which Bond snowboards; it has been suggested that this teaser sequence helped initiate interest insnowboarding.[3]
The film featuresAntonio Vivaldi'sThe Four Seasons, which is performed during the reception that Bond attends undercover atMax Zorin (Christopher Walken)'s stud farm in France.
In the remastered CD edition, the third track is incorrectly labeled "May Day Jumpers" on the back of the case.
Composer John Barry utilises fourleitmotifs on the soundtrack, that recur in two or more of the tracks listed. One is pinned to the theme songs by Duran Duran, one is pinned to henchwoman May Day, one is pinned to the action set-pieces and one appears more generally throughout the film. Barry often called the secondary themes he composed as "action themes" that underscored the action on the screen with hints of the film's theme song, the "James Bond Theme" itself, or simply another theme used only in that particular film. Such themes were occasionally reused, such as his "007 Theme", originally composed forFrom Russia with Love but brought back for four subsequent Bond pictures. The action theme composed for this film is easily a memorable as those secondary themes he used inYou Only Live Twice (the "Space March"),Diamonds Are Forever (a similar space-themed piece, and the "Bond Meets Bambi and Thumper" theme which echoed both the "James Bond Theme" and the title song) among others. The action theme used withinA View To A Kill (in the pieces "Snow Job", "He's Dangerous" and "Golden Gate Fight") was similar in its basic composition to that used inOn Her Majesty's Secret Service, although it features a wailing electric guitar in the background - at this point Barry was using more contemporary sounding instrumentation within the Bond soundtracks, something he would take further in his next and final score forThe Living Daylights.
A View To A Kill Theme
"Set-piece Theme"
May Day Motif
Pegasus' Theme
