Various Artists, John Barry - Moonraker

Beautiful James Bond Soundtrack

The score to MOONRAKER contains very beautiful music. I highly recommend it to all Bond fans and Non-Bond fans alike. Don't let the cover fool you. The music on this CD is just so beautiful and ethereal. This is one James Bond soundtrack that has absolutely no hint of THE JAMES BOND THEME but still sounds amazing thanks to composer John Barry.
November 28, 2006

A send up in Bond soundtracks for sure!

Although the kitchness of the movie cannot be overlooked, I personally consider this one of the finer Bond soundtracks to come from John Barry. I think what impresses me the most is the subtle use of synthesiser and the creative use of harp and strings. The clash and thunder of Barry's characteristic horns is not absent either, coming into play in just the right moments with just the right amount of force to keep the dramatic elements of the music going. An awesome listening experience. I only wish that Disney would stop pouting over the Black Hole and release his soundtrack. I would love to compare the this and the Black Hole soundscapes to each other. June 17, 2006

Reviewed by a Bond collector

This soundtrack is perfect for the consumate Bond fan. The cd contains most of the music from the film and is great purchase for anyone who loves the movie. Each track will immediately bring to mind the scene from the movie. I would buy it again. March 15, 2006

Hypnotically Beautiful

MOONRAKER is one of John Barry's better scores. Words like exquisite, inscrutable and mysterious come to mind. This truly does not sound like a James Bond soundtrack. In fact, there is not even any interpolation of The James Bond theme on this CD. However, we do get to hear the 007 theme and for the last time on this CD in BOAT CHASE. It was never used again in any of the subsequent James Bond films. The instrumental version of the MOONRAKER theme when GOODHEAD MEETS BOND has such an ethereal and dreamlike quality about it that it is extremely moving. It is very whimsical and hypnotically beautiful. BOND LURED TO PYRAMID and FLIGHT INTO SPACE are equally moving and evocative of something just beyond our grasp. This is a wonderful soundtrack.
October 20, 2005

Unique, wonderful score (and there's a reason it's short...)

The release of re-mastered editions of the James Bond scores offered up some great albums that expanded the original soundtracks with extra cues ("Thunderball" and "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" are particularly superb). However, "Moonraker," one of the best scores of the series and one of the most lyrical and unusual (especially when you consider what a silly slapstick film it accompanies) arrived on CD in a bare-bones 30-minute edition that replicates the original LP version with no extra tracks.

This is an unfortunate occurrence, but the people loudly complaining and blaming EMI need to understand that the album producers had no choice. They wanted an expanded album (who wouldn't? more people would buy it), but there was a major stumbling block because of the way the "Moonraker" recording sessions were originally produced. "Moonraker" was a French-British co-production for tax reasons, and most of the film was shot in France. The recording sessions were also done in France, and the original masters reside in vaults in Paris. The American producers of this album were unable to obtain access to these master tapes to make a longer version, and the work to get them would have been prohibitively expensive -- which would mean no album at all.

I too am disappointed we don't have a longer "Moonraker" album; however, the re-mastered sound and the general brilliance of the music makes it impossible for me to give this album anything less than five stars. I've loved this album for years, and still do. I think it shows John Barry at his best, and it's the most experimental score for a Bond film. Barry avoids the period music clichés (except for a slight disco beat under the end titles) that plagued Hamlisch's "The Spy Who Loved Me" score, and he also ignores the silliness of the film and turns in a serious, ethereal, and sensual score. Regardless of length, the "Moonraker" score wields a potent spell.

The theme song, sung by Shirley Bassey of "Goldfinger" fame, never became a big hit, but it's one of the best songs from a Bond film: exotic, timeless, and filled with soaring romanticism. Barry uses the heavy romantic melody in the cue "Bond Meets Dr. Goodhead," one is one of the album's most beautiful tracks. The theme also appears in the first half of "Bond Arrives in Rio and Boat Chase," this time with an understated calypso beat and chorus.

Barry ditches one of his signatures styles of the Bond series, the brassy and sassy use of trumpets and horns, for a more elegant and smooth approach. (In fact, you won't hear "The James Bond Theme" anywhere on this album, although it does appear in the film.) You can hear Barry's changed approach most clearly in "Centrifuge and Corinne Put Down," where Barry follows the death of Corrine at the fangs of Drax's hunting dogs with a hypnotic, slow building piece using strings and harp and only culminating in the brass at the end. More typical suspense music appears in "Bond Smells a Rat" (which covers Bond sneaking into Drax's Venetian laboratory and seeing the effect of the nerve gas on Drax's employees).

The action cue most reminiscent of the earlier scores is in the first half of "Cable Car and Snake Fight," with exciting brass punctuation marks, but then it segues directly into the snake deathtrap music, where Barry again takes an unusual approach with the orchestration, focusing on lyrical action and tension music. The second half of "Bond Arrives in Rio and Boat Chase" sees the return of `007,' a piece of thrilling action music Barry first used in "From Russia, With Love," only here it is orchestrated to match the tone of the rest of the score; it's both beautiful and exiting, and a perfect example of how Barry could turn the expectations of action upside down.

But the real highlights of the album are "Bond Lured to Pyramid," "Space Laser Battle," and "Flight into Space," where Barry creates hypnotic and gorgeous musical suites. "Bond Lured to Pyramid" plays as Bond weaves through the jungle following a beautiful woman to Drax's lair; Barry uses a chorus and chirping woodwinds over a thick layer of strings to create a feeling of exoticism and mystery. (In the film, this cue leads directly into "Snake Fight.") "Space Laser Battle" takes the ridiculous laser duel between Drax's forces and the U.S. Space Marines (???) and makes a slow, lyrical dirge out of it -- a brilliant move on Barry's part that emphasizes the `space' aspect of the scene. "Flight into Space" is six and half-minutes of sustained beauty, and one of the greatest pieces Barry composed for any film: it's almost a complete ballet based on the theme of space travel, using a chorus, organ, and elegant trumpet and horn passages to create the portrait. The music for the emergence of the space station out of the darkness is especially stunning.

Yes, this isn't the longer album we hoped for. Perhaps one day the legal problems will be settled, but this is the best that EMI was able to do. And the remarkable score is still there and still as potent a piece of work as it ever wars. An essential album for all James Bond and John Barry fans. March 29, 2004

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