Barbie’s already seized the box office and now the film’s soundtrack has dominated the UK music charts too.
Songs by Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa and Nicki Minaj have entered straight into the top five since the pink-tinged blockbuster’s drop one week ago.
And they weren’t the only songs from the star-studded album to hit the chart.
Anywhere else he’d be in the top 10, but Ryan Gosling brought some Kenergy at number 25 with his ballad I’m Just Ken.
Superiors of the Official Singles Chart say it’s the first time three tunes from a soundtrack have reached the top five at the same time.
And they say it made history with a total of six tunes in the top 40:
- What Was I Made For, Billie Eilish – number three
- Dance The Night Away, Dua Lipa – number four
- Barbie World, Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice – number five
- Speed Drive, Charlie XCX – number 19
- I’m Just Ken, Ryan Gosling – number 25
- Pink, Lizzo – number 39
Some of pop’s biggest names were behind the soundtrack’s pink, sparkly hits, and you might think that recruiting such a glitzy line-up would be hard work.
But the movie’s music supervisor George Drakoulias tells BBC Newsbeat you’d be unfair.
“Nobody said no,” he says. “Everybody was really excited.”
That comprised two stars at the top of George’s wish list, Nicki Minaj and Lizzo, along with superstar writer and producer Mark Ronson.
George says he attracted Mark to the project with a simple text message: “Hey Barbie?”
“He called me right back and we sent him a script,” says George. “That started the ball rolling.”
Mark ended up curating the soundtrack, writing the score and penning the film’s closing song, Dance the Night Away, with Dua Lipa.
The soundtrack’s also played a big part in Barbie’s enormous marketing campaign.
Tunes from the 17-track album have been steadily released in the run-up to the movie’s release, which George says has “helped fuel excitement for the movie”.
“It was a perfect symbiotic relationship of the music driving the movie and the movie driving the music,” he says.
“Once you saw the movie and how well the music works, as soon as they left the theatre people went out and got the album.”
And, this being Barbie, physical copies of the soundtrack are available in “cotton candy” vinyl and on transparent pink cassette tapes
George refuses to reveal his favourite track but says he was “blown away” by Billie Eilish’s What Was I Made For.
He says the singer was shown just 25 minutes of the film and managed to “take what she’d seen and encapsulate it into this heartbreaking song of being a woman”.
George says he’s very proud of the album and its success in the charts is “the icing on the cake”.
“It’s Barbie’s world, we just live in it,” he says.
Aqua’s Barbie Girl, sampled in Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice’s movie song, also returned to the chart for the first time since its original release in 1997.
And while plastic sure is fantastic, Dave and Central Cee kept the top spot, with Sprinter entering its eighth week at number one.
Olivia Rodrigo also sunk her teeth deeper into the number two slot, holding firm with Vampire.
© 2023 • Story By Edem Latsu Nukafu
Writer’s email:edemlatsu093@gmail.com
