Double-O Barkley?

Wake up and get your tuxes: Is this James Bond’s next chorus?

Should Gnarls Barkley record the theme for the next James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace?

So asks The Los Angeles Times‘s Todd Martens, from his “Extended Play” blog-umn, in the wake of (one-hit wonder, if you ask me) Amy Winehouse bailing out on the November release.

According to the Associated Press, producer Mark Ronson told the UK’s Sky News that Winehouse is “not ready to record any music.”

Ronson says the two started work on the track for the upcoming Bond movie “Quantum of Solace” but it would take “some miracle of science” to finish it.

If this were television, right now I’d be the guy silently tipping the imaginary glass up to my lips, giving the universal “too much to drink” sign as a way of decoding Ronson. I don’t know what the universal “too much heroin, not enough dental hygiene,” right, sign is, but I hope Ms. Winehouse gets help. That way, in the future, when she sings her hit song, “Rehab,” we can all just have a good laugh and stop shaking our heads from crushing pity.

Meanwhile, as I make funny hand signs, Todd Martens is actually doing work. In his post, “Bad news for Amy Winehouse is good news for James Bond,” Martens says

there’s no doubt that Winehouse could have crafted a perfectly acceptable Bond theme, as any of the songs on “Back to Black” would have fit in comfortably with the jazzy Bond songs of the ’70s. They’re dapper and sexy and attempt to exploit a sort of vintage coolness, and that’s the problem.

You see,

2006’s Bond film “Casino Royale” marked a change in direction for the series. It was a Bond less concerned with the kind of retro charm that Winehouse is steeped in. Although some here in the office would argue that “Casino Royale” saw 007 copping a few moves from Jason Bourne, it was nevertheless a sleeker, tougher, more modern Bond, and one less concerned with where the films had already gone (“Casino Royale” essentially restarts the Bond myth).

A Winehouse song opening the new Bond film would be a step backward for the new Daniel Craig Bond flicks, a nod to a period when the Bond films where championing Bassey, Louis Armstrong and Carly Simon, among others. Winehouse’s music essentially celebrates playing a game of dress-up, and a case could be made that it easily fits within the constraints of the Bond formula — the formula of the pre-“Casino Royale” Bond films.

Gnarls Barkley, Martens argues

could bring an appropriate sense of outlandish grandeur to the tune. Through its two albums, the electro-soul duo has shown an ability to add orchestral flourishes and modern accessories without sounding indebted to an era or obsessed with the latest sounds.

Sweetly said, though, with our luck, the producers’ll give the job to the Killers, or somebody like that….

Though, as I think of it, that wouldn’t be half bad, either….