The Best of Bond... James Bond is the title of various compilation albums of music used in the James Bond films made by Eon Productions up to that time. The album was originally released in 1992 as The Best of James Bond, as a one-disc compilation and a two-disc 30th Anniversary Limited Edition compilation with songs that had, at that point, never been released to the public. The single disc compilation was later updated five times in 1999, 2002, 2008, 2012, and 2021.[1] The 2008 version was augmented with the addition of a DVD featuring music videos and a documentary. Another two-disc edition, this time containing 50 tracks for the 50th anniversary of the franchise, was released in 2012.[2]
30th Anniversary Collection
The 30th Anniversary Collection of The Best of James Bond was released in 1992. It featured 19 tracks including 16 title songs for the 16 films that had thus far been released.
A limited 2-disc edition, released in the US only, reshuffles the tracks, sorting chronologically the 16 title songs on disc 1, the three remaining tracks appearing on disc 2. It also includes four tracks that were originally missing from Goldfinger's soundtrack (US release), although these four were included in the remastered soundtrack for Goldfinger in 2003 and appeared on the British LP in the 1960s. The "Thunderball Suite", was likewise not released on the Thunderball soundtrack until it was split up and used on the remastered release in 2003, along with extra unreleased music.
Two rare additions were also made to the second disc. The first is the original version of "Goldfinger" sung by Anthony Newley who also wrote the song in collaboration with the film's composer, John Barry. Newley's jazz version was, however, replaced by Shirley Bassey's version in 1964 for the film and for release on the album. Newley's version was first released with the 30th Anniversary Collection. The second rare addition is Shirley Bassey's version of "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" for Thunderball. Bassey had originally recorded the vocals for the track which initially was to be used as the main title theme; however, the song was replaced by Tom Jones' "Thunderball" after a decision by the producers that the title theme should feature the name of the film. Dionne Warwick was subsequently chosen to rerecord "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", but even her version wasn't released on the Thunderball soundtrack till the 1990s.
Released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the series, the 2012 release eschews the gun barrel sequence that served as the cover motif so far to instead feature the "Golden Girl" from Goldfinger. It was released in two versions, a two-disc edition with 50 tracks, and a single-disc edition with only the first CD, comprising 23 tracks.[3]
Released to coincide with the release of No Time to Die, the packaging reverts back to the gun barrel design and it was released on 2-disc CD and 3-disc Vinyl.
