Nearly 60 years on, the James Bond franchise reigns supreme. The series’ newest entry, No Time to Die, represents the 25th time audiences have cheered on their favorite MI6 spy as he derails the plans — Smith & Wesson and vodka martini in hand — of foreign intelligence services and evil megalomaniacs.

What makes Bond so compelling? When you go to see a Bond picture, you are assured that the fare will be entertaining and polished to the nth degree. But of all the tools in the arsenal of Bond films, perhaps none is as consistent or of higher caliber than the series’ music — the fact that almost everyone knows the duh-duh-duh-duh-duh guitar riff of the series theme illustrates this point. So don a suit, hop in your Aston Martin DB5, and enjoy the joyride through decades of the Bond franchise’s most memorable scores.

RELATED: How to Watch the James Bond Movies in Order (Chronologically and by Release Date)

The Classic: Goldfinger (1964)

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Image via United Artists

The blueprint which many later films would try to emulate, and for good reason. Series staples such as a stand-alone pre-titles sequence, an obsession with gadgets supplied by MI6’s Q Branch, and a greater incorporation of humor arrived with Goldfinger’s release in 1964. But perhaps more importantly, it is where series veteran John Barry begins to imbue the Bond series with its trademark sound. Much of Dr. No’s soundtrack (composed by Monty Norman) finds itself breezily swaying to Caribbean island rhythms; the percussion-heavy From Russia With Love, good on its own, feels like a trial run as maestro Barry steadies for this, his tour de force.

Goldfinger contains some of the most memorable cues in the series. The militaristic timpani and thunderous brass underpinning villain Goldfinger’s sky attack upon Fort Knox (“Dawn Raid On Fort Knox”) elevates the scene to a fever pitch of intensity. Here, as with the Turkey-set From Russia, the source music is sometimes dictated by location, as on the swung Latin jazz of Bond’s arrival in Miami (“Into Miami”). And the score also is shaped by the title tune, a sweltering powerhouse of a number that Dame Shirley Bassey belts out in crescendos such that even the horns have difficulty matching the vocalist’s ferocity.

As with almost all future Bond scores, the movie’s theme song is interpolated and expounded upon in other cues, but its instrumental counterpart here, a swinging, rocking masterpiece of jangly guitar, conveys the ‘60s spy movie aesthetic better than perhaps any song outside of the ubiquitous “James Bond Theme.” One last note should go to the tune playing as Bond discovers the beautiful Jill Masterson dead, her body coated in gold paint: the delicate harp-plucked “Golden Girl,” which would notably be sampled by Sneaker Pimps for their ‘90s trip-hop hit “6 Underground.”

The Show Biz-iest: Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

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Image via United Artists

In 1971, the Bond series had seen turnover. Sean Connery had departed the series following the filming of 1967’s You Only Live Twice, feeling exhausted by both the demanding shoot schedule and the perils of being unable to walk anywhere without being accosted by hordes of fans. Following the dark, dramatic On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which opened to slightly poorer financial reception than past installments, distributor United Artists gritted their teeth and asked Connery back for a then-record salary of $1.25 million. Connery acquiesced. The picture that resulted — Connery’s last time toplining an official Eon Productions Bond film — is a decidedly ungracious final hurrah for Connery. With a muddled plot about diamond money being laundered to fund a space missile instigated by long-time series villain Blofeld (played here by Charles Gray in a scenery-chewing turn), the movie suffers from drab cinematography and a comedic tone jarring in its departure from the previous film, which was proto-Daniel Craig-era in its foregrounding of darkness and emotional depth. A guilty pleasure of this writer nonetheless — if you squint enough you can see the rough outline of a Bond parody, Austin Powers before Austin Powers — we wouldn’t argue if you put this film in the category “Soundtracks Better Than the Accompanying Movie.”

Barry, in his sixth Bond outing, is decidedly invested in absorbing the atmosphere of the film’s glamorous, show-biz setting into a collection of tracks. Cabaret-style piano and mournful saxophone atone for the film’s sins, as on the lovely instrumental rendition of the film’s smoky title cut — a certifiable delight of seduction topped with another powerhouse Bassey vocal performance. Or the eerily beautiful, elegant “007 and Counting,” which soundtracks a tense scene where Blofeld’s laser strikes its first targets. What’s most notable about the score, in relation to Barry’s past sonic outings, is how much it eschews fast-paced action cues in favor of slower, softer — and, therefore, more dramatic — tunes. Perhaps it doesn’t pair well with the lumbering film for this reason; akin to a heavy Cabernet with a light tuna salad, the score is asking for a better, more substantial vehicle to hitch its wagon to.

The Genre-Hopper: Live and Let Die (1973)

Roger Moore as James Bond holding Jane Seymour as Solitaire and pointing a gun in Live and Let Die
Image via MGM

The score for Live and Let Die came about in a happy accident. Barry, hard at work on the West End musical Billy, was unavailable. In the meantime, Paul McCartney and nascent solo band Wings were approached to perform the title song for the as-yet composerless upcoming Bond film. On this bombastic track, McCartney reunited with longtime Beatles producer George Martin, who handled the orchestration. Producers Harry Saltzman and Alfred "Cubby" Broccoli were enamored with what Martin did for the track, and hired him on that basis (it should be noted that their ears were right, as the title track shot up to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became the most successful Bond theme song up to that point). What results is unlikely, just like the film: James Bond, counterintelligence agent, was now tracking Harlem gangsters and Caribbean drug lords hell-bent on protecting their bottom line. Live and Let Die feels like the point where the series began chasing filmmaking trends rather than pioneering them; the film employs many of the archetypes of popular blaxploitation of the day.

This genre-chasing doesn’t stop at Martin’s score, which energetically upholds a somewhat soggy, dated movie. The “James Bond Theme” is presented here with syncopated drumming, wah-wah guitar, and conga-led percussion; it sounds as if Funkadelic had a hand in the creation. A tipping of the hat to Black culture comes in the film’s opening scene, one of the starkest in the series’ history, as an MI6 agent is shot down on a New Orleans street, his body then carted away by a funeral procession performing a jazzy rendition of traditional hymn “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.” Elsewhere, the string and brass arrangements feel one degree removed from Thom Bell’s Philadelphia sound, grittily processed through Bond's life-or-death stakes. The score still manages to feel quintessentially Bond, even while eschewing the straight-laced arrangements of old for something looser, funkier, and more soulful. Perhaps the critical and financial success of this film served as proof that Bond could be thrust into any situation and still be Bond, a tightrope that producers Saltzman and Broccoli would walk over the next decade, occasionally falling (see next entry).

The Guilty Pleasure: Moonraker (1979)

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Image via United Artists

“James Bond in Space.” Moonraker threw all caution to the winds and cemented Roger Moore as the fantastical, escapist Bond. An attempt to emulate George Lucas’ megahit Star Wars, down to a third-act laser gun fight, there is perhaps no better argument for the Bond series growing too big for its britches by 1979. Yet the film, the series’ 11th entry, became the most successful film of the franchise up to that point, commercially speaking (now, when adjusted for inflation, it ranks 5th in domestic box office gross receipts). The space setting really only takes up the final half-hour of the film; prior to that, it’s the normal Bond travelogue with stops in beautiful Venice and a Carnival-celebrating Rio de Janeiro, as Moore’s debonair Bond tracks the man responsible for stealing a space shuttle clean out of the sky (if the plot reminds you of You Only Live Twice, well, it’s sort of a remake, even featuring the same director). And following a five-year absence from the composer’s chair, Barry delivers a fresh overhaul to the franchise’s scoring.

Gone — somewhat — is the raucous brass that soundtracked Bond’s previous intercontinental exploits. Present instead is lush strings, and loads of ‘em. There’s a beautiful, appropriately otherworldly nature to the romanticized music in this Bond flick. The title song — Shirley Bassey’s third and final at-bat — hastens the series’ steps into adult contemporary that began with Carly Simon’s megahit “Nobody Does It Better,” but makes a better case with its lush string arrangement (pay attention to the end credits rendition, which puts a Studio 54 sheen on the proceedings). The soundtrack’s epic cue “Flight Into Space,” playing as Bond and one-film lover Holly Goodhead navigate their space pod to villain Drax’s space base, is marvelously grandiose, so maximalist it utilizes a choir (a Bond first). In a series full of evocative sonic textures, the wonder and mystery of space that is expressed in this track — and throughout the score — makes Barry’s work here a high watermark for the series. And all in a silly movie where a pigeon does a double-take and U.S. Marines are deployed to space at a moment’s notice (the proto Space Force, perhaps?).

The Send-Off: The Living Daylights (1987)

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Image via MGM/UA Communications Co.

The ‘80s weren’t particularly fond for Bond. First, Roger Moore was getting long in the tooth; by the time of his final Bond outing, 1985’s A View to a Kill, the English gentleman was 57 (“I was only about 400 years too old for the part,” said the witty Moore). On top of that, Bond’s adventures were getting increasingly ridiculous and outlandish (Bond’s brief spells as Tarzan imitator and lion tamer in 1983’s Indiana Jones-ian Octopussy), and audiences were showing waning interest as a wave of more serious action movies like The Terminator and Lethal Weapon. So when Eon Productions cast stage veteran Timothy Dalton for the series’ 15th outing, they showed they were up to the task of reestablishing Bond as a hard-edged spy in the vein of the serious action protagonists the series was now competing with. But, reminiscent of George Lazenby’s portrayal 18 years earlier, audiences still didn’t take to the turn toward intensity; Dalton’s two films rank third-to-last and last in domestic box office gross when adjusted for inflation. John Barry must have been just as aware of the changing tides in popular music as the producers were with the blockbuster movie landscape when he went about composing his final Bond adventure, The Living Daylights.

Just like the underrated movie, the score feels remarkably fresh, owing to Barry’s novel incorporation of drum machines and synthesizers alongside his traditional orchestrations. Such a technique is employed to great effect on the icy jazz-scape title tune by Norwegian synth-poppers A-ha, and on the soundtrack’s tender love ballad “If There Was a Man,” which winds throughout the score’s romantic cues between Bond and doe-eyed Kara (a particularly pretty variation of this song, coming with the duo’s arrival in Vienna, is performed entirely on synth; fittingly for the waltz capital, it's in 3/4 time). In high-octane sequences, such as Bond’s piloting of a plane holding an activated bomb during the film’s third-act climax, the brass explodes over ticking drum machine patterns ("Inflight Fight"). It’s decidedly modern for the 25-year-old franchise, and magnificently, none of it sounds dated. As contemporary as it was, Barry’s last hurrah serves as a microcosm of the 24 years between this film and his first, the terse Cold War espionage of From Russia With Love (how appropriate it is that his final film arrived with the imminent fall of the Soviet Union). Barry’s brass still retains a front-and-center spot in action setpieces, and his later-era penchant for string-and-woodwind romanticism is heavily reflected in Kara’s melodic leitmotif. It’s a great summary for a great oeuvre that manages to look backward and forward.

The Rejuvenation: Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Pierce Brosnan and Michelle Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies
Image via MGM

In 1997, Bond was back. The 1995 film Goldeneye, Pierce Brosnan’s first outing as the swanky spy, brought the series back to life after a series of messy, protracted legal disagreements in the early half of the '90s almost killed the franchise. It’s no thanks to that film’s soundtrack, though, which is garish in its incorporation of modern synthesizer bleeps and bloops which sound better suited for its corresponding N64 game. In 1997, Barry’s rightful heir was found in one David Arnold, who was hired on the basis of his marvelous compilation of contemporary Bond reworkings, Shaken and Stirred (Barry himself publicly complimented the “rhythmic freshness” of the covers). After a period of six months, Arnold’s first Bond score was complete, to the film Tomorrow Never Dies. The film is very back-to-basics Bond; this writer would even call it rote in its retreading of familiar elements, from the car chases to another final battle aboard a ship (one cannot not call the film prescient, though, its central conflict revolving around a lunatic media mogul who wishes to cause global calamity).

Arnold’s score cannot be called tired, though. It builds upon Barry’s Living Daylights work by incorporating electronica-indebted rhythm tracks alongside traditional orchestral arrangements; elements of trip-hop and fast-paced drum and bass (the climactic parking garage scene) can be heard in the arrangement choices. Bond and Chinese MMS spy Wai Lin’s helicopter ride to Carver’s media headquarters, a gigantic, Blade Runner-esque emblem of dystopia, revels in techno, as a shifting, cymbal-led electro beat and synthetic bassline adorned with rising strings instill apprehension in the viewer’s mind. The soundtrack, like Barry’s best work, also strikes a balance between the big, intense action cues and the lush, romantic pieces for the emotional moments; see the melancholy love theme for Bond’s former girlfriend, Paris Carver (Teri Hatcher), who sadly meets her end too soon. The score, too, with its heavy emphasis on percussion, has electronic rock bona fides. One could see Garbage developing something with these instrumentals; oh, maybe that’s why they ended up working on The World Is Not Enough...

The Modern Classic: Casino Royale (2006)

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Image via EON

The next-closest thing the series ever had to a foreclosure came in the early-mid aughts. Brosnan’s last Bond flick, 2002’s Die Another Day, was an undignified, CGI-infested example of the trappings the series kept falling for, from misplaced humor to ridiculous celebrity castings (sorry, Madonna). None of it was Brosnan’s fault, but he was unceremoniously let go as Eon producers looked for someone who could convey anguish, and the dapper Brosnan was a no-go. Eventually settling on the blond Daniel Craig, Bond was ready for yet another reboot. Like Goldeneye 11 years prior, the results were immediately heralded as a return to form. Casino Royale, centering on a newly crowned 007’s mission to stop terrorist financing in Uganda by participating in a high-stakes poker game, oozes darkness from its pores. Never before had Bond been a through-and-through drama (with the potential exception of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which still pales in comparison). The audience watches Bond brutally tortured and then his long-term recovery in a hospital bed. A picture like this, so different from past Bond entries, cannot fall back on the tricks of past scores. So, just as the franchise was entering a new chapter, long-term composer David Arnold was on his way out.

His second-to-last Bond score synthesizes what he had previously pioneered — modern action cueing suffused with electronic elements — into something new, bolder, more mature. The 12-minute multi-part epic “Miami International” that plays as Bond thwarts the destruction of an airliner represents Bond at its most tense and climactic. Like the constantly shifting narrative of the film, the sound fluctuates at a moment’s notice between cascading woodwinds and then cavernous brass when the action comes back in; think Nirvana’s quiet-loud song structures. The complex Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) receives a beautiful ovation of a theme that complements the character’s emotional depth and mystery. At his lowest points, Bond receives swaths of dissonant strings bordering on white noise, a feat that would have been unthinkable for past renditions of the character, which prioritized his charm and humor over humanity. And just like the accompanying film, the earnest, raw, gimmick-free nature of the score contributed mightily to Bond’s 21st-century repackaging, still unfolding before the audience 15 years later: as a man, not a superhero.

KEEP READING: How the James Bond Franchise's Past Hints at the Series' Future