Can you call the music for J.Bond movies a genre?

[emanresu]

Actually I'm not sure. Dictionaries are usually clear on meanings but the great unwashed aren't going to pay much attention to that, innit?

Not quite. Genre is well defined by "style or category". But even thinking about this any further would give me headache. We're people here, lets just forget about the dictionary and go with what feels right.

[emanresu]

Uh, the headache is coming.. but the people yapping are not the slaves of the dictionary. Instead the dictionary is merely trying to clear up the mess. Not with 100% success-rate very often.

[lawson-stone]

Absolutely. Dictionaries are usually clear on meanings but the great unwashed aren't going to pay much attention to that, innit?

Dictionaries actually do not establish meanings. They simply codify usage at a certain point in time. That's why dictionaries change constantly with updated entries, revised definitions, and other features. "Sloppy" is a value-laden term concealing a prejudice. Why not say "genre" is a broad word that gets used in many ways. But to repeat: dictionaries are not rule books revealed from heaven or from scholars. They are compendia of usage current as of maybe 5 years prior to their publication date. They report, they do not decree. In all language, the usus loquendi is king.

[RLetson]

Um, retired taxonomist (literary), by-necessity linguist*, and irrepressible pedant here, confirming Lawson-Stone's post about dictionaries (and the shape-shifting nature of language in general) and adding that in general usage "genre" is a pretty fuzzy term--even among academics it's often used in annoyingly imprecise ways. But since in pretty much any context it amounts to "category," it's reasonable to specify what kind of category is being referenced and with what criteria for membership--and from whose point of view. And like language itself, membership criteria is supplied by those who use the term.

Academics/scholars/specialists will try to be precise and specific, but unless the sets of objects being corralled by the category are pretty static (plants and animals, geological formations, chemical compounds), the taxonomist winds up acknowledging fuzzy boundaries and interpenetrating or conflicting criteria. "Film music" is easy to identify (clue: is it written or adapted for cinema?), but all kinds of musical categories and styles and traditions have made their way into films. And a single film can contain multiple musical "genres"--first example for me is Nino Rota's score for 8-1/2. Particular styles of music (with the understanding that "style" is as elastic a term as "genre") have become associated with particular movie genres, but those styles, or significant traits, generally originate outside the film world. Thus the 1950s-60s association of some kinds of jazz with spy/thriller/noir/cop movies. And Christian has pointed out how 1930s-50s movie scores looted late-Romantic textures and harmonic language. (Then there's a kind of reverse categorization, as in those modern serious orchestral pieces that have me thinking, "Sounds like movie music." Go figure.)

* Thanks to having had to explain grammar and usage to undergraduate writers.

[jameslovestal]

Dictionaries actually do not establish meanings. They simply codify usage at a certain point in time. That's why dictionaries change constantly with updated entries, revised definitions, and other features. "Sloppy" is a value-laden term concealing a prejudice. Why not say "genre" is a broad word that gets used in many ways. But to repeat: dictionaries are not rule books revealed from heaven or from scholars. They are compendia of usage current as of maybe 5 years prior to their publication date. They report, they do not decree. In all language, the usus loquendi is king.

Well said, "but the great unwashed aren't going to pay much attention to that".

[Litterick]

Film music is a musical form, not a genre. A film score could be composed in any style of music. Its only necessary musical quality is that it was composed to be heard on the soundtrack of a particular film, just as examples of ballet music have been composed for particular ballets.

[emanresu]

So. When not going in too deep into "what a "genre" really is" (that'd be just a useless effort and nullified two weeks later),
what are the musical points of J.Bond movie theme songs that would make you say "this sounds like Bond music" when hearing something completely random?
There is not just that one chord... the one that gets used everywhere else abundantly.

[Christian Miller]

Um, retired taxonomist (literary), by-necessity linguist*, and irrepressible pedant here, confirming Lawson-Stone's post about dictionaries (and the shape-shifting nature of language in general) and adding that in general usage "genre" is a pretty fuzzy term--even among academics it's often used in annoyingly imprecise ways. But since in pretty much any context it amounts to "category," it's reasonable to specify what kind of category is being referenced and with what criteria for membership--and from whose point of view. And like language itself, membership criteria is supplied by those who use the term.

Academics/scholars/specialists will try to be precise and specific, but unless the sets of objects being corralled by the category are pretty static (plants and animals, geological formations, chemical compounds), the taxonomist winds up acknowledging fuzzy boundaries and interpenetrating or conflicting criteria. "Film music" is easy to identify (clue: is it written or adapted for cinema?), but all kinds of musical categories and styles and traditions have made their way into films. And a single film can contain multiple musical "genres"--first example for me is Nino Rota's score for 8-1/2. Particular styles of music (with the understanding that "style" is as elastic a term as "genre") have become associated with particular movie genres, but those styles, or significant traits, generally originate outside the film world. Thus the 1950s-60s association of some kinds of jazz with spy/thriller/noir/cop movies. And Christian has pointed out how 1930s-50s movie scores looted late-Romantic textures and harmonic language. (Then there's a kind of reverse categorization, as in those modern serious orchestral pieces that have me thinking, "Sounds like movie music." Go figure.)

* Thanks to having had to explain grammar and usage to undergraduate writers.

I’d be the first to admit that the reason I enjoyed the music of Mahler, Shostakovich and Stravinsky as a kid when my dad played it at me (thanks dad!) was because it sounded a bit like John Williams. Of course I became more ‘sophisticated’ (less so now thankfully) but I have that dude to thank for opening my ears to that world of music. I don’t think mine is an uncommon story either.


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[RLetson]

There are several signature features in the original Bond-movie scores, particularly the Monty Norman brassy big-band+strings arrangement that incorporates the twangy/surf-guitar theme--which doesn't show up until the "gun-barrel" opening of From Russia with Love. (Dr. No opens with some twittery electronica before the brassy cue, and the credit sequence cycles through several musical genres, including a calypso tune.)

Here's an interesting video that tracks the stylistic/arrangement variations across the years--

How many genres/styles are referenced in these? And again, "genre" is just a way of talking about collections of traits/elements that can be used to separate one bunch of artistic items from other bunches--and the individual traits or sub-groups of them can migrate across category boundaries and join up with others to form other genres. It's Venn diagram stuff. Or figuring out whether a novel food item is kosher or treif.

[AllanAllen]

I’d be the first to admit that the reason I enjoyed the music of Mahler, Shostakovich and Stravinsky as a kid when my dad played it at me (thanks dad!) was because it sounded a bit like John Williams. Of course I became more ‘sophisticated’ (less so now thankfully) but I have that dude to thank for opening my ears to that world of music. I don’t think mine is an uncommon story either.


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Same, I know of the planetary suite via Star Wars.

[emanresu]

All I had was MTV.

[emanresu]

Genre benre. Whatever. It was never the reason for asking and posting. It was all a clever ruse. (though it is was an interesting thing to think about)

The real reason for the topic was - somehow the artists that were asked to provide the theme for the movie, ALL of them went waaaay over what they had been doing so far.
Some of them went a bit too far. Didn't work out so well. But quite a few did something awesome, and somehow hit higher. Emotionally. While being a slave to a theme...........

[emanresu]

Foofighters "Pretetender" steals from the thing. Makes it it's own. Steals from the "category".

[Litterick]

The real reason for the topic was - somehow the artists that were asked to provide the theme for the movie, ALL of them went waaaay over what they had been doing so far.

Really? I am struggling to remember most of those songs.

[emanresu]

That's the beauty of the genre.

[emanresu]

Listening the themes, old ones, new ones. I can't say there is a best one. Because they all went all-in.

[Litterick]

It is not a genre, but a characteristic of British films of the sixties.