Billie Eilish – ‘No Time To Die’

21 February 2020

I was intrigued, back in early 2020, when the writer and performer of the title song for the imminent new James Bond film was announced to be Billie Eilish. Wouldn’t it be gas, I though, if the song turned out to be ‘Bad Guy’-style bleepy, mopey lo-NRG electro-pop full of angsty teenage snark?

Well, it didn’t. ‘No Time To Die’ is pretty much a sluggish Billie Eilish iteration of the template for Adele’s ‘Skyfall’ and the Sam Smith one after that: big orchestra, big strings, big swell, and Billie’s uninterested approximation of an Adele-style big soaring mid-section. It’s the film itself, when it eventually came out a delayed year and a half later, that was mopey and angsty, and more like a teenager in trying to be deep and meaningful like diary poetry. Both song and film, though, were dreary, contrived and unengaging.

I wouldn’t blame Billie Eilish for the song’s shortcomings. It was made to order for a formulaic franchise now becoming ever more clueless and try-hard about reconciling its lore and its brand with market demands and social progress; I wouldn’t have wasted my best on it either.

The film’s title was probably meant to be misdirecting or ironic. Within weeks of the song topping the charts it turned out to be unfortunate.