Lots of artists have written music for films and TV shows, but only a select few have been tasked with crafting a theme song for a James Bond movie.
Among those who can count themselves in that category is Paul McCartney (“Live and Let Die”), Carly Simon (“Nobody Does It Better”), Duran Duran (“A View to Kill”), Jack White (“Another Way to Die”) and numerous others.
It’s a tremendous honor, as many of those artists will tell you. In 1973, McCartney was approached by Ron Kass, a former executive for the Beatles‘ Apple Records who was then working with Harry Saltzman, coproducer of the first nine James Bond films. It was Kass who suggested McCartney for the job of writing the Live and Let Die theme, but McCartney played it cool.
“Writing a Bond song is a bit of an accolade,” McCartney recalled in his book, The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present. “And I always had a sneaking ambition to do it. … I said ‘Yeah, I’d probably be interested’…trying not to seem too enthusiastic.”
At the time of this writing in January 2026, there are 25 films in the official 007 catalog, 27 if you count the two movies not made by the primary Bond film production company, EON. Denis Villeneuve is slated to direct the next movie, though it’s not clear which actor will play Bond, when the movie will be released or who will write the theme song.
However, we’ve come up with a gallery of 15 acts that are certainly worthy of the challenge.
15 Artists Worthy of Doing the Next ‘James Bond’ Theme
Any of these folks would do a bang-up job of composing a piece for whenever the next 007 film is ready for it.
