But Bond audiences from 1983, coming off the punk era, might have been waiting for the controversial promise of a song called “Octopussy.” Alas, it was the second Bond theme on a title sequence which also didn’t use the corresponding movie as its song title. At least on the UK pop charts, where it was the lowest charting Bond song to place up to that time. Written by composer John Barry and lyricist Tim Rice, “All Time High” hit an all-time low for James Bond themes. Madonna grounded the film in deceptively underplayed rhythms, inverting instrumental designations and keeping it danceable. Pierce Brosnan played James Bond in the over-the-top solar-powered battle for supremacy. Most Bond fans (and our staff) vote the song down to the pits of the list-and you have me to thank for it staying out of the bottom five!-but “Die Another Day” had the highest debut on the Billboard Hot 100 that year, and was the highest charting Bond theme in America since Duran Duran’s “A View to Kill,” spending 11 weeks at No. So judging by the electronic synthesized vocoder effects, perhaps that character is the villainous henchman Jaws, played by Richard Kiel with a set of stainless-steel teeth in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and its sequel Moonraker (1979). She was also a performance artist, an actor who put herself into the role for the song she was singing. “Sigmund Freud,” she auto-tunefully demands, “analyze this.” In 2002, Madonna was the biggest star to bond with Bond since Paul McCartney.
Gone was the traditional bombastic opening and dramatic delivery, replaced by short staccato bursts of strings forming a minimalistic rhythm to the dance pop diva’s moaning croon. “I’m gonna avoid the cliché,” Madonna sings on “Die Another Day,” the Bond theme for the 2002 offering, and she sidestepped the franchise’s entire formula.
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