‘Barbie’ Proves Movie Soundtracks Are Back – and Why They’re Important

As expected, “Barbie” has simply dominated the box office, becoming only the second movie this year to hit the $1 billion mark. But it’s also crushing music charts too.

The soundtrack shattered UK records, and Ryan Gosling’s banger of a power ballad, “I’m Just Ken,” cracked Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. The album as a whole — complete with tracks from Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa and Nicki Minaj that each have more than 100 million streams on Spotify to date, which, for scale, beats out every track on Taylor Swift’s re-release of “Speak Now” — debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 Chart on Friday, in what Billboard itself regarded as “the closest race for No. 1” this year.

Now, is the “Barbie” soundtrack an exception amid today’s movie soundtracks? Well, no. It’s actually an example of precisely how these albums are still a key piece of the business — at least for studios. For the artists on it, it’s a bit more of a crapshoot.

Right up until the late 1990s, soundtracks were key companions to films, and they made a lot of money. At an average of $17 for a CD at that time, multiplied by 45 million copies sold — at least in the case of “The Bodyguard,” the best-selling soundtrack of all time to this day — well, you can do the math.

In the early 2000s though, album sales in general dropped off a cliff, thanks to the massive shift in the music industry when downloading music illegally became the go-to method.

A soundtrack resurgence didn’t start blossoming until 2014, when “Frozen,” and shortly thereafter “Guardians of the Galaxy” came along. And now we have “Barbie,” selling 126,000 copies in its first week —  the best single-week sales for a soundtrack since “A Star Is Born” back in 2019.

The measure of success for a soundtrack has changed over the years obviously, thanks to the arrival of streaming, and platforms like TikTok, which allows just segments of songs to go viral.

Former Sony music exec Seth Schachner told TheWrap that where audiences used to go out and buy the accompanying album after seeing a movie, there are a lot more platforms to consider now.

“It is kind of distinct from the old days of here’s ‘Pulp Fiction,’ and here’s this really cool soundtrack that Quentin Tarantino’s team has pulled together for it, and go out, buy the record,'” Schachner said. “I think those days are probably probably gone.”

And, with those days gone, the bottom line looks pretty different, for both musicians and studios.

Artist Benefits

In the streaming era especially, getting a song on a hit soundtrack can still certainly yield monetary dividends for an artist — but it may not be much.

That’s because there are a couple different ways to go about getting onto a soundtrack these days. One option is that studios license existing music, often classic hits from well-established artists.

According to Los Angeles entertainment attorney Tre Lovell, in these instances, the actual artist behind the song “is far down in the pecking order of who profits,” and as a result, won’t make much money.

That said, with the right project, Seth Schachner says a soundtrack can be “an absolutely fantastic vehicle for breaking, whether it’s catalog or new.” Kate Bush was a remarkable case for the former, when her entire discography saw a 439% surge in Spotify streams thanks to Netflix’s “Stranger Things.”

And of course, major artists like The Weeknd and Post Malone saw breakout success after being recruited for the soundtracks of “Fifty Shades of Grey” and “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” respectively. So, there is undeniably some gold to be struck.

“On a base level, you’re certainly going to see streaming activity from it, [and] I think, for certain artists, to the extent that they’ve got vibrant fan communities that can make the connection between what they’re watching… and the recorded music, it might be a decent vehicle for people to go out and buy vinyl, because we’ve seen a lot of resurgence of vinyl purchasing as well,” Schachner said.

He added that artists might see additional benefits, including increased sales in merchandise, tours and ticketing and generalized awareness on other platforms, including radio.

Clayton Durant, founder of music consulting firm CAD Management and an adjunct professor of Music Business at the New York University Clive Davis School of Recorded Music, adds one big caveat though.

“The extent of a soundtrack’s impact is heavily contingent upon where the artist is in their life cycle, what their ambitions are as an artist, and of course what their future career trajectory looks like,” he told TheWrap.

Still, Durant says being featured on a soundtrack is “a big deal to artists at any level” because “more times than not, [it] acts as one of the most direct ways an artist can build lifelong superfans, which in turn drives consumption of their music across their entire catalog.”

Then there’s the option for a company or studio to commission an entirely new song from an artist, like Lizzo’s “Pink” or Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” on the “Barbie” soundtrack.

In that case, Lovell explains, an artist can get an upfront fee, eventually followed by a royalty rate once it starts making money, “but again, it’s fairly modest revenue unless the artist is a superstar.” Oftentimes, the producers of the movie own the rights to the song.

“For the artist, doing a soundtrack is really only worth their time if they wrote and owned the song themselves and then licensed it to the production,” Lovell told TheWrap. “In music, the most money goes to whoever owns the song, so it’s worth it for that artist who also owns the song that is licensed to the production company.”

A Symbiotic Relationship?

In a perfect world, the experts TheWrap spoke to say a soundtrack would “benefit both” an artist and a studio, creating “a valuable symbiotic relationship.” But business is rarely a perfect world.

“If I were betting over the last five years, I would bet it might have benefited the studios and/or the streaming services perhaps more than the artists, basically because of the volumes that are out there,” Schachner said.

Naturally, where the artists themselves may make very little, a studio has ways of earning quite a lot. Durant noted that done right, a good movie soundtrack can be a vital part of a marketing campaign leading up to the start of sales.

“Film studios are well aware of the potential that artists have to drive ticket sales, much like high-profile actors,” he said. “They understand that an artist’s fan base can act as early ticket buyers for blockbuster films.”

“Fifty Shades Darker” employed this knowledge back in 2017, when they brought on Taylor Swift and Zayn Malik for “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever.” Now, Durant would point to “Barbie” as another successful example, arguing that that the inclusion of artists like Nicki Minaj was a pointed strategic move.

“This synergistic approach and the deliberate strategy of leveraging artists’ fan bases, in my opinion, significantly contributed to the film’s success, resulting in higher than anticipated revenue,” he said.

Of course, “Barbie” star Margot Robbie herself did tell the studios that the film would make a billion dollars — but even she jokingly conceded that that was just something she threw out to help the movie get greenlit.

Regardless, the soundtrack for “Barbie” clearly helped the movie, and it’s not the only one of its kind to do so in recent years.

When executed properly, a good movie soundtrack is an easy win for studios.

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