With today’s release of Adele’s Skyfall, the theme to the upcoming James Bond movie of the same name, and the fact that 5th October is International James Bond day celebrating the 50th anniversary of the release of Dr. No, the focus is on the music of Bond.
Adele Skyfall
It is being predicted that Skyfall could be the biggest selling track over its first 24 hours in iTunes history and, in the U.K., there is talk that the song might be the first ever to top the Singles chart.
Here in the U.S., we have had one Bond theme make it to the top, Duran Duran’s theme from A View to a Kill. Two others, Carly Simon’s Nobody Does It Better (from The Spy Who Loved Me) and Paul McCartney and Wings’ Live and Let Die, peaked at number 2. Still, over the 22 films released before Skyfall, only eight have made the American top forty.
Billboard ran the numbers on all the Bond songs and here is their ranking of the top ten.
- A View to a Kill – Duran Duran (1985/#1)
- Nobody Does It Better – Carly Simon (1977/#2)
- Live & Let Die – Paul McCartney & Wings (1973/#2)
- For Your Eyes Only – Sheena Easton (1981/#4)
- Goldfinger – Shirley Bassey (1965/#8)
- Die Another Day – Madonna (2003/#8)
- Thunderball – Tom Jones (1966/#25)
- All Time High – Rita Coolidge (1983/#36)
- You Only Live Twice – Nancy Sinatra (1967/#44)
- Diamonds Are Forever – Shirley Bassey (1972/#57)
