Review: Jack White, Alicia Keys misfire on new Bond theme - LA Times

19-Sep-2008 • Quantum Of Solace

"Another Way To Die" review by the LA Times.

The good: It brings a bit of rock 'n' roll bite to the Bond theme and is instantly more memorable than the song Chris Cornell recorded for "Casino Royale."

The bad: Any hooks by the song are provided by riffing on the instantly recognizable Bond theme, not by anything new offered in the song. And Keys, usually a relatively bold, in-your-face R&B singer, seems oddly tamed here, her voice not meshing well with White's yelled warble. In her defense, it's hard to not sound silly when you sing, "Suit 'em up, bang bang!" And there's some odd, out-of-place sudden electronic textures here and there, resulting in an overly-crowded song.

Final thoughts: One of the highest-profile film-related songs of the year, "Another Way to Die" is too firmly entrenched in Bond-lore to have any sort of life outside of the upcoming film, "Quantum of Solace." The first mistake was mimicking an iconic film score with some electric guitars and modern effects, which is always, always, always, always a bad idea (see Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton in "Mission Impossible"). But don't fault White and Keys too much, as tackling a Bond theme has proved to be an insurmountable task for a bevy of pop stars of late. Everyone from Cornell to Madonna to Garbage has seemed to drown under the pressure of having to craft a tune for the franchise, trying too hard to sound modern (see Madonna's "Die Another Day," the music equivalent of soulless CGI effect after CGI effect), or burdening songs with overwrought string arrangements (see Garbage's "The World Is Not Enough").

The promise of White roughing-up the Bond song was intriguing, but by the 15th second of the tune, "Another Way to Die" reveals itself to be little more than hard-rock updating of the James Bond fanfare. It's passable, certainly, and for a brief second it even sounds as if the song might veer into harder, Black Sabbath-like territory. But it soon slinks away into jam-packed busy verses, where orchestral flourishes and trash-can rhythms battle for airtime under the anonymously shouted vocals of Keys and White.

As ignorable action-movie background music, "Another Way to Die" probably works just fine; its bombastic drums are a more than workable sound to some seven-figure, crash-and-bang effects. Yet about halfway through the song, the piece dissolves into a bit of a mess, with out-of-place "whoa-whoas" and a cheesy squiggles of a guitar solo. It's probably easier to stomach in the midst of a fight scene and works just fine in a brief television commercial.