As is usually (always?) the case, the "James Bond Theme" works its way into several cues. This contentious piece of music is indeed a melody composed by Monty Norman for a work that came before Dr. No. But it's unlikely that it would have made much of an impression without John Barry's arrangement of it, which in turn benefited from contributions made by guitarist Vic Flick, who played the famous guitar riff.

The theme song for Licence To Kill, sung by Gladys Knight, leans heavily on the theme song for Goldfinger. But, you know, people don't go to James Bond movies for anything new. Quite the opposite. They go for the exact same things that are in every movie.

Kamen does a great job of splitting the difference between reheating leftovers and cooking something new. He throws some acoustic guitar into the "James Bond Theme", has the drums play with a different feel, gets some synth tones in there...

Some of the cues, like "Sanchez Escapes", sound uncannily like John Barry compositions while some, like "Q in Disguise" could be a Road House outtake. Others, like "The Conveyor Belt", could be slipped into Die Hard pretty unobtrusively.

This two-CD presentation features source music cues as well as the original soundtrack album, which has a longer version of the Gladys Knight-performed theme song as well as numbers by Ivory, Tim Feehan and Patti LaBelle.