John Barry - Goldfinger (60th Anniversary Remastered Limited Edition) (2024)

…After the surprise expansions of Bond flicks Live and Let Die and Octopussy that kicked off the calendar year, La-La Land Records has stuck again with a special 60th anniversary reissue of the soundtrack to the series’ third installment, 1964’s Goldfinger. With Sean Connery confidently back in the role of Ian Fleming’s secret agent, Goldfinger is perhaps the film that perfected the still-ongoing film series’ formula. It featured exotic locales, biting humor, an iconic sports car (the gadget-laden Aston Martin DB5) – and, for the first time, a pop theme song over the stylized opening title sequence. (Matt Monro’s theme to predecessor From Russia with Love (1963) played over that film’s end credits.) Here, series composer John Barry, with lyrical assistance from Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, created a title song for Shirley Bassey to belt; it became a Top 10 hit in America, while the soundtrack album topped the Billboard pop charts as well.

The label’s single-disc reissue, produced by Neil S. Bulk with restoration efforts by Chris Malone, mastering by Doug Schwartz and a package designed by Dan Goldwasser (with notes by esteemed film music writer Jon Burlingame), resequences all 15 tracks from the original U.S. and U.K. pressings and adds two bonus tracks: Newley’s recording of “Goldfinger,” and a rare mono version of Bassey’s (which features an alternate vocal).