LISTEN: Adele's 007 Theme Song 'Skyfall' Debuts
"This is the end/hold your breath and count to ten..." Adele's moody retro James Bond theme song has hit the web in full! How does it measure up to its predecessors? (Best theme in many Bonds, no?) Listen to the U.K. crooner sing "Skyfall" and chime in with your thoughts after the jump.
I can't quite tell how the lyrics have anything to do with the plot of Skyfall, but it's a nice return to form. Adele's certainly one of the strongest Bond theme singers in 007 history.
[Go deeper into Adele's "Skyfall": From Shirley Bassey To Dr. No, The 007 DNA Of Adele’s Skyfall Theme]
Where does "Skyfall" rank among the best and worst Bond songs of all time?
[via the official 007 Twitter]
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Comments
Nicely done. Adele was born to sing a Bond theme.
Wow. I think that's really really ordinary, actually. Monotonous chorus melody, with a really weak, unpleasant movement on "stand tall" - it doesn't stand tall at all! - and a forgettable verse.
And the lyrics are just flat-out AWFUL. "So this is the end/I've drowned and dreamt this moment/So overdue I owe them/Swept away I'm stolen"? Is that the new way forward, just dig around for rough rhyme and throw random cliches in front of them? "Skyfall is where we start/A thousand miles and poles apart/Where worlds collide and days are dark/You may have my number/You can take my name/But you'll never have my heart"? So, let me get this straight, when the sky falls we're facing it all together and standing tall a thousand miles apart and on separate worlds and you'll never have my heart? This is some crap right here, folks. And the shoehorning of the "name/number" stuff into it is painful.
Contrast and compare with Sheryl Crow for "Tomorrow Never Dies" and be embarrassed for poor Adele. This is a corporate shill of a song.
A: You're right in that this isn't a very strong song when you read the lyrics.
B: This is a James Bond song, they all run along the same lines...even Crow's version.
C: While the song in general isn't a top 40 hit it is not a "shrill of a song," as you put it. Perhaps you should just quite your job in the music business...or stick with your day job.
D: It's a beautifully sung song, but I think Adele should have written it by herself.
"This is a James Bond song, they all run along the same lines…even Crow’s version."
Have you listened to Crow's version? Musically, yes, it's right in the original Bond chanteuse template. Lyrically it's the direct opposite; it's about how useless and self-destructive it is to be a Bond girl. "'Darling, you've won' is no fun / Martinis, girls and guns / It's murder on our love affair".
"While the song in general isn’t a top 40 hit it is not a “shrill of a song,” as you put it. Perhaps you should just quite your job in the music business…or stick with your day job."
Perhaps you should go back and read again. I said a corporate shill of a song, not a "shrill of a song" (?) - shrill is not really something anyone could say of Adele, though why something being shrill would stop it from being a top 40 hit is beyond me, given the usual guff on the charts.
Alan: I agree that the "fall" is the only distinctive melodic movement in the entire song, but it feels fumbled; it should be a singalong moment but it almost feels like an outtake. More importantly, if it's representing the "sky fall" why on Earth is it on the lyric "stand tall"? (It's not like it might be ironic - that'd be an extreme leap of faith given the stupidity of some of the other lyrics in there.) It's a freakin' mess.
I'm sure it does get better the more you listen to it; it could hardly get worse. I'm not sure it gets any more interesting, unless you enter some kind of meditative trance where the boredom of the chords and the melody and the lack of energy fuse into one single dark brown stripe of lower consciousness.
And Adele's... passable with this. She doesn't really get to put any personality onto it, but then it feels so much like a song written to a marketing deadline I'm not sure anyone could.
It does make you think, though, dammit, Missed Bond Singers Opportunities #1: with the right song, the late Ms Winehouse could have given us a real Bassey for the 21st century. Even with this monotony she would have cut through.
Well--this ranks as one of the worst Bond themes ever--an overlong intro, a near single harmonic foundations and a melody that features only one interval of any interest (a wide interval featuring a quick descent to the tonic--smart move representing, of course, a "fall" but, sadly, never featuring enough euphony relative to the redundant harmonic base. Now, as if that were not enough, the lyrics are non-sequitirs that provide no logical story line--even though some of the language is interesting). As for Adele, this is the first time I have ever heard her (though I had heard of her)--she sings admirably well, though without any stylistic markers (think of Barbra Streisand as an ideal here) or tonal singularities (think of the Brazilian singer Maria Bethania as the ideal here). This is not to criticize her--she may by just perfect for the sort of music she generally sings. But this song is so utterly without interest, that it needs a interesting singer desperately--in this instance, Adele is just the wrong singer. Frankly, I think the producers went for a name singer rather than a singer who was contextually right for the song. Too bad--another sign of movie soundtrack decline. By the way, the Bond movies have never recovered from the loss of John Barry, though they have recovered ,only now, from the loss of Sean Connery.
Adele could sing the phonebook and it would be great. She makes anything sound beautiful and I loved the song. She is the only one who could have pulled this song off and she's awesome!!!
WOW!!! Tell us how you really feel...cantankerist indeed!!! Geesh!!! You must hate your life?
Great song & voice but Shirley Bassey singing Goldfinger is still #1. The greatest Bond song of all time.
This,. Yes.
Man, this is dull. Makes Madonna's "Die Another Day" sound like a classic. Let's just be thankful Lana Del Rey didn't sing this.
This is adequate but Live and Let Die is pretty much unbeatable.
Best Bond theme in a long, long time. I found that it gets better the more you listen to it. It's not Bassey, but nothing ever is ever going to be.
Was waiting for the big moment but was waiting and waiting and waiting. Very disappointed not what I
was expecting she could have done better! 🙁 An OK song not the best.
Yes, it's alright, but I'm still disappointed.
When it was initially announced that Adele was doing the theme, you immediately have high expectations - and you feel that, maybe, just maybe, Adele might give Dame Shirley a run for her money...
Unfortunately, that's not the case 🙁
Yes, it's definitely in the top 50% of Bond themes, but a Bond theme sung by Adele *could* have made it to the top 5.
Fell in love with the song the first time i heard it ,so for all you complainers shut the fuck up !!
Ha - Just noticed the majority who love this can't put more than one sentence together, or insult people who CAN articulate their response meaningfully. Adele can't even nail the descending line in this - she's gifted with a voice and nothing else - waste of talent. And now it's won an Oscar - Jesus. Corporate Shill is right. Not 'Shrill', Adele lovers, 'Shill'.
I´m Adele´s fan but I can´t tell if skyfall ´s theme fits to the movie t it was good for me to read all the previous comments, just to get different opinions. At first when I knew that Adele was chosen to do the 007 theme, immediately thought that she has a special singing and composing style, and thought she is really good but you kow when someone becomes famous also becomes comercial.
Nobody puts those nice leaps in the melody line like Adelle. Just take her for the musical breath of fresh air that she is.
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