While Amy Winehouse was having her summer-long meltdown, the Quantum Of Solace producers looked to one of the oddest pairings in music history – R&B diva Alicia Keys and guitar-mangler Jack White.

You’d think the collision of these two musical juggernauts would have spawned a bigger mess than anything Amy could have come up with. Not so. Another Way To Die has all the brooding hallmarks of a great Bond theme, but rocks hard enough to stand on its own.

Another Way To Die is an epic in every sense – it avoids played out pop sensibilities for extended riff breaks, and the usual verse-chorus-verse structure seems to be throw out the window. Alicia brings a ballsy attitude to the song, and Jack brings his excellent riffology to the mix. Throw in some dramatic bits and a brass section, and you’ve got a winning Bond theme.

They’ve also spent heavily on the video, which is a CGI extravaganza. I just can’t understand anyone not liking this song – it’s a fantastic collaboration. I never in a million years would have put Mr White Stripes and Miss Alicia Keys on the same song, but the end result is amazing.

However, the song does have its detractors – notably at the LA Times:

The promise of White roughing-up the Bond song was intriguing, but by the 15th second of the tune, “Another Way to Die” reveals itself to be little more than hard-rock updating of the James Bond fanfare. It’s passable, certainly, and for a brief second it even sounds as if the song might veer into harder, Black Sabbath-like territory. But it soon slinks away into jam-packed busy verses, where orchestral flourishes and trash-can rhythms battle for airtime under the anonymously shouted vocals of Keys and White.

Here’s the video. And don’t forget to leave your own verdict in the comments!

Proud as I am, it’s a fact that the last few singles from Snow Patrol are starting to blend into one pounding drum, euphoric cliche. I mean, it’s like every song is a depressive re-interpretation of U2’s Beautiful Day.

I see the band got a similar pasting from the team at The Singles Jukebox:

Like the best elements of “Run”, only diluted and destroyed to the extent that it becomes this repulsive Dashboard Confessional-lite (does that even seem like a possible concept?) pile of UTTER DRIVEL which makes the whole of the band in question’s back catalogue unlistenable. I really hope it passes and goes away, because otherwise I am going to spend a lot of unnecessary time hating Snow Patrol.

All of this is a big shame, because I sense that Snow Patrol are capable of better material, or else the hype surrounding the band simply isn’t justifiable. It’s one thing to have a distinctive sound, but quite another to have all your records sound the same.

Here’s the Signal Fire video: