NTTD song gets rave reviews from major outlets

No Time to Die teaser poster

The release of No Time to Die’s title song generated debate among Bond fans. But the Billie Eilish number, which she performed and co-wrote, generated rave reviews from some established outlets.

What follows is a sampling.

BRENNA EHRLICH, ROLLING STONE: “Is this a soundtrack for exploding cars and sharks with lasers on their heads? Hell no. It’s a soundtrack befitting a Bond for our times, played by a worn-out Daniel Craig facing down his fifth and final outing as 007. Bond always gets the girl, but it never ends well. As such, Eilish’s acceptance of a lonely life is really kind of fitting.”

CHRIS WILLMAN, VARIETY: “‘No Time to Die’ is one of the better Bond songs of the last 25 or 30 years, coming in ahead of a lot of entries that seemed promising and didn’t really work: besides Garbage’s and (Sheryl) Crow’s, there were underwhelming efforts from Chris Cornell and the team of Jack White and Alicia Keys, worthy artists that tried to contemporize the idea of what a Bond theme should be, at their mortal peril. (The less remembered about Madonna turning Bond techno, the better.)”

MARK SAVAGE, BBC: Billie Eilish “is known for her intimate, designed-for-headphone vocal style, but she rises to the challenge of the song’s soaring climax, with her early vulnerability transforming into strength and resolve. It’s easily the most audacious and atmospheric take on the Bond theme in recent memory.”

ALEXIS PETRIDRIS, THE GUARDIAN: “Yet Eilish has stamped her own identity on the song. The tendency for vocalists tackling a Bond theme is to belt it out, as if in homage to the most famous Bond singer of the lot: Shirley Bassey is known for many things, but subtle understatement isn’t among them. Eilish, however, opts for her standard close-mic approach in which surliness does battle with vulnerability.”

Your mileage may vary. Among fans, the ones who liked the song really, really liked it while among fans who didn’t care it, they really, really didn’t like it.