I misremebered the name of the song - it’s No Good About Goodbye. Anyway, listen for yourself:
That sounds like an archetypal Bond theme song
a la the classic John Barry efforts. But then, so did the song "Surrender" from
Tomorrow Never Dies which was supposed to have been the main title theme; that one was sung by k.d. lang. But Broccoli & Co., in both cases, discarded the more traditional Bond-song approach in order to provide a song by a more popular artist of the day (for
Tomorrow, it was Sheryl Crow, and for
Quantum, it was a duet from Jack White, who wrote that song, entitled "Another Way To Die", and Alicia Keys). Perhaps with the seemingly perpetual dire financial straits of UA/MGM, they were simply trying to boost sales of the soundtrack albums by including those artists -- but the result was a questionable song selection up front instead of one that fit well with the particular film. At least with
Tomorrow, they had the good sense to slide the better song in over the end titles. Arnold worked instrumental versions of the k.d. lang song into his score as well -- while the Crow title song had no further appearance past the titles. With Quantum, the Arnold/Black/Bassey song simply disappeared; BTW, Don Black was one of John Barry's favored lyricists, providing lyrics for
Thunderball, Diamonds Are Forever, and
The Man With the Golden Gun (although the latter was silly and forgettable) -- and the pair won an Oscar for
Born Free. Black also supplied the lyrics for Arnold's title song for
The World Is Not Enough, performed by the group "Garbage". It's too bad Barbara Broccoli & company didn't give the Bassey song cited above at least the "end title" treatment -- it's a pretty good one!
