Congratulations to Billie Eilish and FINNEAS for their Grammy Award win for ‘Best Song Written for Visual Media‘.
The title track from the 25th James Bond film, No Time To Die (2021), made Grammy Award history last night, becoming the first song to win for an as yet unreleased film.
In previous years, the song would have been disqualified, and eligible the following year, however, the Grammy Award visual media committee amended this years rules, taking into account the global pandemic’s impact on cinema release dates.
Released on 13 February, 2020, No Time To Die was submitted for consideration for ‘Best Song Written for Visual Media’ in anticipation of its original April 2020 release date. However, due to the continued and unpredictable closure of cinemas around the world, the films release date was postponed from April to November 2020, then to April 2021, and finally to its current release date 30 September, 2021.
Despite being a cinematic icon since 1962, this is only the fourth Grammy Award win for the franchise. George Martin won in 1973 for his arrangement of ‘Live and Let Die’ by Paul McCartney & Wings, and Skyfall won in 2013 for Adele’s title track of the same name, and Thomas Newman’s score.
Accepting the award via Zoom, Eilish thanked score composer and producer Hans Zimmer, record producer Stephen Lipson, film producer Barbara Broccoli, director Cary Fukunaga and James Bond star Daniel Craig, adding “I can’t believe this is real, I couldn’t believe it was real then,” referring to landing the gig, and becoming the youngest songwriter to compose a James Bond theme.
