Thomas Newman returned as Spectre’s composer. Rather than composing the score once the film had moved into post-production, Newman worked during filming. The theatrical trailer released in July 2015 contained a rendition of John Barry’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service theme. Mendes stated that the final film would have more than one hundred minutes of music. The soundtrack album was released on 23 October 2015 in the UK and 6 November 2015 in the US on the Decca Records label.

Official Release

The English band Radiohead were commissioned to write the title song, and submitted “Man of War”, an unreleased song written in the 1990s. The song was rejected as it had not been written for the film and therefore was ineligible for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Radiohead recorded another song for the film, “Spectre”, but this was also rejected as too melancholy.

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In September 2015 it was announced that Sam Smith and regular collaborator Jimmy Napes had written the title theme, “Writing’s on the Wall”, with Smith performing it for the film. Smith said the song came together in one session and that he and Napes wrote it in under half an hour before recording a demo. Satisfied with the quality, the filmmakers used the demo in the final release. “Writing’s on the Wall” was released as a download on 25 September 2015. It received mixed reviews from critics and fans, particularly in comparison to Adele’s “Skyfall”, leading to Shirley Bassey trending on Twitter on the day it was released. It became the first Bond theme to reach number one in the UK Singles Chart, the second to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song, and the fifth to be nominated. It also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards.