For: Spectre (2015)
Lost to: Sam Smith
Better than the chosen theme? Yes
Most Bond-like lyric: The only truth that I could see/ Is when you put your lips to me
Radiohead seem like the both the least likely band to hook themselves to the Bond trailer and the most natural: their bookish, literate take on rock more suited to arthouse productions than the bang-crash-explosion thrills and spills of Team Bond, yet containing within their ranks one of the best soundtrack composers working today.
This five-minute epic combines classy Jonny Greenwood classical chops with Thom Yorke’s voice at its most haunting, and a brass-and-string backing that sways like a drunken orchestra on a stormy sea. The band recorded it around the session for their 2016 album A Moon Shaped Pool; the Bond team decided, in the end, it was too dark. Though given the end result – Spectre’s opening sequence is a decidedly creepy affair, with Kraken-like octopuses and Mexican death masks – this was never going to be a job for the likes of Katy Perry.
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