James Bond Movie

A sort of cross between Sex and the City and the Kronos Quartet as they might be remixed by Paul Oakenfold (actually Orion and the Beatmasters do most of the producing), Bond is a string quartet of toothsome beauties at least as concerned with their hair and makeup as their playing whose work on Shine is heavily augmented with dance beats. It's a formula that sits them atop the classical crossover charts, up there with Sarah Brightman and Josh Groban, and why not?

Musically, in terms of being a James Bond score, Dr. No is the weakest of the soundtrack albums in the film series, with only Monty Norman's "James Bond Theme" marking out familiar territory. But as a piece of music and a pop culture artifact, Dr. No may be the most interesting album in the whole output of the James Bond series. A good portion of the most memorable music in the film, including "Kingston Calypso" (the "Three Blind Mice" theme from the opening of the film) and "Jump Up," constituted mainstream American (and European) audiences' introduction to the sounds of Byron Lee & the Dragonaires (who also appeared in the movie, performing "Jump Up"), who became one of the top Jamaican music acts in the world just a couple of years later; sharp-eyed viewers can catch a young white man dancing in that same scene, incidentally, who is none other than Chris Blackwell, the future founder of Island Records.