Tomorrow Never Dies

Although promise had been made of an expanded version of Arnold's first Bond score, I was fairly skeptical that it would ever happen. However, the improbable has happened and here we have a much expanded version of the original A&M album with many of the latter cues that were missed off included. This was apparently due to the tracks still being recorded when the album was due for release. Opinion on the effectiveness of Arnold's efforts are predictably divided. He's not John Barry, but then again, he's not Marvin Hamlisch either, which (in the context of film music at least) has to be a good thing. Arnold is at least capable of bringing a certain stylishness to the music that is pretty much absent in all of the other non Barry scores. Perhaps the biggest marks against him are his somewhat heavy handed orchestration which is often somewhat overbearing and in this case, particularly during the later tracks.

The first eleven tracks are the same as the original album, except that the original album had a track entitled Station Break which is missed off for some reason. The order is slightly changed, but the musical flow is as effective, however where Back Seat Driver left off, we are then given a substantial number of the remaining cues. I did really like the original album as the style seemed to have some personality over and above the average action score and even it doesn't match the suave subtlety of Barry's music, did at least have the Bond sound in spades. One of the biggest reasons for this was Arnold's end title song, Surrender. Cheryl Crow's title song wasn't particularly well received, but Arnold's brassy, swaggering Surrender was hugely popular (and led him to writing the song with Garbage for The World is Not Enough) with fans and peppers the score. A perfect update of the Bond song, it also works well as an instrumental as did pretty much all of the Barry songs.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Arnold's remaining and previously unreleased underscore is a little on the generic side. I recall thinking while watching the film that the remaining music didn't really match the quality of the opening half and the album confirms this. The descent of the film from thriller to over the top action at the end probably didn't help much. Arnold seemed to be able to control his penchant for bombast to a greater extent, but the orchestra really lets rip, particularly during the final couple of cues, A Tricky Spot for 007 and the first part of All in a Day's Work. This is not to say that it isn't perfectly exciting action music, but Arnold simply lays it on a little thick. There are of course some worthy extra tracks, Bike Chase makes good use of the Bond theme, with the little brass bursts that Barry was always so fond of, even if the orchestration is far too busy and dense for them to have quite the same effect as when Barry did it. A few blissfully quiet and actually extremely lovely moments punctuate the action, the beginning of Bike Shop Fight and the wonderful Kowloon Bay, which has a gorgeous acoustic guitar version of the Surrender melody, a highlight of the newly released music, if not the entire score.

Unfortunately, neither Crow's nor Arnold's songs appear, which is a shame really since at least Arnold's song would have been a musically satisfying addition. Of course people who get this version are likely to have the original album, but it does mean that you can't have the entire selection of music in one place. Ah well, a minor quibble. You do, however, get an 11 minute interview with David Arnold given by John Burlingame which doesn't provide any startling revelations, even if it does confirm the notion that Arnold is an incredibly affable, laid back fella. In the words of a wise man at some point in time, for those who want more Tomorrow Never Dies, here's less of the same - in other words, it brings the score to its bombastic conclusion, but is likely to have many people, including me, wanting just a little peace and quiet afterwards.