The World Is Not Enough (soundtrack): History and Key Facts

The World Is Not Enough: Music from the MGM Motion Picture is the 1999 soundtrack of the 19th James Bond film of the same name and the second Bond soundtrack composed by David Arnold. The score features more instances of electronic music, which Arnold included to "make the thing a little more contemporary". To add an ethnic flavor to tracks that conveyed the film's Turkey and Central Asia setting, Arnold brought in percussionist Pete Lockett, qanun player Abdullah Chhadeh, and singer Natacha Atlas.

Arnold broke tradition by not ending the film with a new song or a reprise of the opening theme. Originally, Arnold intended to use the song "Only Myself to Blame", written by David Arnold & Don Black and sung by Scott Walker and inspired by the failed romance between James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) and Elektra King (Sophie Marceau), who turns out to be a villain. However, director Michael Apted "felt it was too much of a downer for the end of the movie" and Arnold replaced it with a techno remix of the "James Bond Theme". "Only Myself to Blame", is the nineteenth and final track on the album.

The soundtrack was recorded across six days in September 1999 by an 83-piece orchestra conducted by Arnold collaborator Nicholas Dodd. Dodd described The World Is Not Enough as his favorite Bond score.

Elektra King was provided with her own theme, most prominently heard in "Casino," "Elektra's Theme" and "I Never Miss." Arnold added two new themes to the Bond repertoire with this score, both of which are reused in the next Bond film, Die Another Day (2002). The first is an action theme, performed on the upper-registers of the piano, heard during "Pipeline" and "Submarine." The second is a romance theme, first heard in the film during the skiing sequence as "Snow Business", available on the La-La Land Records extended soundtrack release, but not heard here until the "Christmas in Turkey" cue in a simple arrangement for piano. Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy also wrote a theme song for the film, but it was rejected. The album reached #106 on the UK Albums Chart.

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from The World Is Not Enough (soundtrack) by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.