David Arnold, who composed the scores for the previous four Bond films, said that Quantum of Solace director Marc Forster likes to work very closely with his composers and that, in comparison to the accelerated schedule he was tied to on Casino Royale, the intention was to spend a long time scoring the film to "really work it out".

[7] White's favourite Bond theme is John Barry's instrumental piece for On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and he watched various opening credit sequences from the series for inspiration while mixing the track.

One notable omission is the fully orchestrated James Bond Theme, which features, as it did in Casino Royale, only at the film's conclusion, but this time over the traditional gun barrel walk-on-and-shoot as well as the start of the end titles.

Other tracks listed heard in the film (but not on the album) are played during scenes such as Dominic Greene's charity fundraising party (i.e., "Cholo Soy", "Regresa", and "El Provinciano" by Jaime Cuadra); and Puccini's opera Tosca forms the backdrop to a key sequence.

"Vesper" from Arnold's Casino Royale soundtrack reappears at key moments in the film; it may be heard on the album in tracks 12, 15, 18 and 23.