Today's Mellow Playlist

I started my day today with the mellow sounds of The Best of Bond...James Bond, one of my favorite CDs (surprise! yes I actually do purchase CDs sometimes). Though, this time, these sweet mellow sounds were streaming from my iPhone into my car's (actually good) stereo system and not directly from my CD.

I did add a couple of other songs to this playlist, that weren't included in the CD:

• Another Way To Die from the recent Quantum of Solace soundtrack
• the James Bond remixed theme (if not mistaken by Moby) from Tomorrow Never Dies
• The World is Not Enough from the movie of the same name, by Garbage/Shirley Manson.

Fans might notice that I completely left out the theme Madonna sang for Die Another Day *bleh* it was bad enough having her cameo to contend with in the movie, let alone the dystopian theme song. I had felt the same about the Tina Turner theme song for Goldeneye, but that has grown on me since--and I can only listen to the Quantum of Solace song from beginning to end while driving, else some of the loud cacophony towards the end sets my teeth on edge a little. I hope htey go back to doing such a nice job with the newer themes as they used to in the olden days.

This playlist not only provides some great tunes, but also an amazing cross-sectional representation of musical styles and techniques that emerged from important and diverse eras in our society. You can feel the adventurous edge and smooth style associated with Bond himself, emerging from songs such as the incomparable James Bond Theme from Dr. No, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Moonraker, and Diamonds are Forever. Harmony and vocal layers stream and unwrap themselves before your ears--such as in the rich vocal talents of Shirley Bassey--or synthesized, sometimes flatter sounds of the young 80s (Duran Duran's Living Daylights) and 90s (the Bond theme from Goldeneye) can do much to help the franchise transition into a newer, younger age.

By the way, just as points of useless trivia, my favorite Ian Fleming book was Live and Let Die, my favorite movies from the series are On Her majesty's Secret Service followed closely by Casino Royale, and my favorite 007 theme song is Live and Let Die by Paul Mcartney.