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Article - Review
of the expanded Diamonds Are Forever
Matt
Manning
8
February 2003
After
the sheer delight of finding the expanded OHMSS to be as good as
I (and indeed ALL of us) had hoped it would be, I was expecting
an equally fantastic ride with the new DAF and wasn't disappointed.
Basically, everything you're hoping with this CD has been met, ALL
the music you've been waiting for is now here so instead of me waffling
on about how good each track is (you all know how good it is!) here's
just a run-down of how they've structured this new CD (with some
humble comments and conclusion from me).
Again
we have the original album sequence followed by the bonus material
and they have added new music to 6 of the original album tracks.
Right from the word go as well: the Shirley Basey song is the one
heard in the film opening with the huge clash of brass before gradually
settling into the song proper. (The remastered sound unearths some
extra instrumentaion I never knew was there before!)
"Bond
Meets Bambi & Thumper" extends to the fight music as they throw
him into the swimming pool (yes, at last, THAT long-lost fight music:
you're gonna get no less than 3 renditions of it on this album).
"Moon
Buggy Ride" now begins with Bond stealing the moon buggy from the
astronaunt-training stage.
"Death
At The Whyte House" opens with the eerie 'mountaineering outside
the Whyte House' music.
What
was previously just a second instrumental of the main theme is now
"Diamonds Are Forever (Bond and Tiffany)" which bookcases the cruise
ship lounge piece with the Wint & Kidd motif and the climatic fight
between them and Bond.
And
"To Hell With Blofeld" encompasses ALL of the music from the oil
rig scenes before launching into the old "007" climatic battle music.
Even before getting onto the rest of the bonus stuff, this new version
of the old album alone demonstrates how gobsmackingly CRAP the score
was represented on the original release!!!
The
titles of the bonus tracks are all pretty much self-explanatory
- what you think they might be, they ARE! ALL the music is there!
"Slumber Inc." incoporates all the wonderfully delirious cremetorium
music (the first time a choir was used in a Bond score?) and listening
to it up-close makes me convinced it's "Mary - Queen Of Scots" in
disguise!
The
"Additional and Alternate Cue" track comprises of Wint & Kidd visiting
Mrs. Whistler, an alternate "Bond Meets Bambi & Thumper" and alternate
escape music after "Moon Buggy Ride" followed by source music from
the Circus Circus scene (Tiffany at the shoot-the-balloon stand
and even the metamorphosising gorilla cage! Yeeees!).
Hearing
all this together on the same CD, I was struck for the first time
by how wildly varying and tongue-in-cheek the whole score is (all
that jazzy casino music, the quasi-religious cremetorium music,
the Circus Circus music, the fights, the chases, the sex, the outer
space music) and yet how superbly it all seems pulled together as
a coherent whole! DAF is a score that demonstrates how amazingly
versatile but, at the same time, unmistakably unique Barry could
be under one roof!
Matt. |
