Radiohead’s “Spectre”: Listen To What Could Have Been The New James Bond Theme
Back in July, a UK bookmaker suspended bidding on who recorded the latest James Bond theme. Someone bet £15,000 on alt-rock band Radiohead, which raised eyebrows because Ellie Goulding, Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith had been the favorites among bidders. Then the franchise revealed that, yes, Sam Smith recorded the Spectre theme, so the Radiohead rumor seemed just like that — a rumor.
But on Christmas Day, frontman Thom Yorke released Radiohead’s “Spectre” — the band’s first new music in four years and what would have been the film’s theme, before Sam Smith’s “Writing’s On The Wall.” (“It didn’t work out, but became something of our own, which we love very much,” the band says on SoundCloud.)
“Spectre” does feature the requisite dramatic strings and lyrical nods to the plot (“The only truth I can see / Spectre has come for me“) of a James Bond theme. But with Thom’s fragile vocals and its foregoing of a hook for chilling atmosphere, this Radiohead recording could also be well be a sequel to 2001’s “Pyramid Song,” a Amnesiac track that seem to depict a slow, yet peaceful death. Listen below.
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