David Arnold
Theme From Casino Royale [with Chris Cornell]
David Arnold (1962 -)
David Arnold is a Grammy Award-winning composer best known for scoring five James Bond films, the 1994 film Stargate, the 1996 film Independence Day, and the cult television series Little Britain. While attending the Centre of Arts in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, Arnold became friends with director Danny Cannon. The two made their respective major film debuts with The Young Americans. Arnold scored both of these using large traditional orchestral forces, in an imposing style.
This must also have impressed the producers of the James Bond franchise, since David Arnold was then asked to take over the mantle of resident Bond composer from John Barry. This is not an easy task since Barry has been scoring Bond Music for decades, and his broad sound is now very closely associated with the series. However Arnold has taken the essential elements of Bond and updated them for the 90s and beyond, by incorporating driving rock rhythms and the use of today's technology in the production.
To underline his place as the new Bond man, but at the same time to pay his
respects to the work of John Barry, Arnold put much effort into his "James
Bond project". This resulted in the "Shaken and Stirred" album
containing many favourite classical bond theme-songs updated and arranged by
Arnold and sung by a variety of well-known singers or groups, including Leftfield,
Pulp, Chrissie Hynde, Propellerheads and Iggy Pop. A "making of" TV
programme was created during the recording of this album and you may be able
to catch this on TV at some point. Arnold has also done the soundtrack for the
latest Bond outing "Die Another Day" with Madonna singing the title
theme, and appearing in a small on-screen cameo. The music is very techno in
places, but the familar Bond landmarks are still there.
Though he worked with a number of singers on his "James Bond project",
he has also collaborated with artists on their own songs. Notable examples of
this include his work with Bjork on the hit song "Play Dead", and
a song for Natasha and Daniel Bedingfield. Recently Arnold was awarded an "Academy
Fellowship" by BAFTA, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
The award was presented by Bond lyricist Don Black with Matt Lucas and David
Walliams from the TV series "Little Britain" in attendence. Arnold's
score for the latest (though in some senses earliest) James Bond film Casino
Royale is now on general release in the UK, and ignores the techno trend of
recent years to go back to the largely acoustic basics of the earlier films.
Stylistically everything "Bond" is there except the main theme which
is only briefly hinted at until the end titles where Bond becomes the James
Bond that we all know. The "Casino Royale" soundtrack is available
at these links: Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.
Arnold is a very busy man. He was one of the judges in the Audi Reel Talent Award, where the winning films were shown in London in September 2007. Then he was working with the Kaiser Chiefs in the BBC Electric Proms in October.he us currently working on 'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' with Harry Gregson Williams.