John Barry

You Only Live Twice, like most of the other James Bond soundtrack albums in the series during the '60s, had more music than could easily be contained on one LP. This expanded, remastered reissue of the album contains an entire LP's worth of additional music, 35 minutes of material, although none of it is exactly a revelation. The best parts of John Barry's score were represented on the original album, and although some of the best music reappears here as parts of the bonus tracks, most notably "Aki, Tiger, and Osato," there's nothing new that registers that strongly. The annotation is very interesting, however, and the improved sound is a considerable virtue -- in addition to which, You Only Live Twice was always the least easily available of all the Bond soundtracks on CD, so it's not as though this will be an upgrade so much as an initial purchase for most people. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi