Various – James Bond Collection

This excellent 2LP James Bond Collection was released to mark the 10 year anniversary of the first Bond film, Dr. No, released in 1962 and contains excerpts from the soundtracks to the first 7 films - all the official Connery Bond films, plus On her Majesty’s Secret Service. This is a great, well thought out compilation - and sounds absolutely superb. The packaging is also great with a nice 4 page booklet (6 including the inner gatefold) containing details about the films, as well as images from on set and of the posters - plus a John Barry bio.

Truly excellent and essential compilation - there was a cassette release, I have it, somewhere, will add it to discogs when it turns up.

If you love the music of the early James Bond films and you want more than just the title songs but don’t want to go as far as collecting all the individual soundtrack albums, this collection is for you. Beautiful music, beautiful sound.
But be warned - it doesn’t include the main theme from You Only Live Twice, and both Thunderball & Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang are instrumental versions.
This was released at a time in the 1970s when “stacking” record players were popular so some double albums were designed for you to place both records on top of each other and then turn them over together - hence the odd arrangement of record one holding sides 1 & 4, while the second record has sides 2 & 3.

On my copy [UAD.60027/8] - LP1 has Side 1 and Side 4 - LP2 has Side 2 and Side 3. The centre labels reflect this unexpected order.

With liner notes by the one and only Lester Bangs!