Mark Ronson on Creating the Music for ‘Barbie’: ‘The Movie Overtook My Life for a Year’
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As they began working on music for Barbie, director Greta Gerwig, music supervisor George Drakoulis, executive soundtrack producer Mark Ronson and Atlantic Records executives Kevin Weaver and Brandon Davis started a text chain titled Barbie Weave.
“It was quite the lively chat. It was pretty much active 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” says Weaver, Atlantic’s west coast president. “It was a very inspiring, colorful, creative chat group,” agrees Ronson.
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The chat, which was supplemented with bi-weekly Zoom calls, became their non-stop repository for their wish list of artists and moonshot musical ideas for the fantastical Warner Brother movie, which, like the soundtrack, arrives Friday (July 21).
The result is an often frothy, upbeat, immersive soundtrack full of pop gems from a wide-ranging, global who’s who of top pop hitmakers including Lizzo, Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice, Sam Smith, Karol G, FIFTY-FIFTY and Tame Impala, among others.
At their first in-person meeting, Ronson played some themes and Gerwig showed several images, both of which served as an entry point for the musical curation, says Davis, Atlantic’s EVP and co-head of pop/rock A&R. “Seeing some of those scenes, and even some of the stills early one was really inspiring to us to help paint the picture from the musical point of view.”
The first song to come together was Lipa’s “Dance the Night,” which is performed in the movie and serves as a tentpole musical moment. Gerwig had sent Ronson a disco-inspired playlist that included the Bee Gees, leading Ronson, who lined his New York studio shelves with Barbie and Ken dolls, to come up with “Dance the Night,” co-written with Andrew Wyatt, Caroline Ailin and Lipa.
“I didn’t want to make the Barbie song too bubble-gummy or something that would have been really obvious,” Ronson says. “There’s a toughness to it,” he says of the retro, infectious tune. (The other song performed in the movie is “I’m Just Ken,” written by Ronson and Wyatt, which serves as a humorous, existential ode for Ken — played by Ryan Gosling — as he tries to navigate his life in Barbie’s shadow. )
As they began to cast the soundtrack, the music team reached out to individual artists, not with the mandate to write a song specifically about Barbie or Ken. Instead, Weaver says, “We said, ‘Watch the scenes and spend time with Greta and Mark and us and let’s talk about what the musical vision is for that bespoke need, and then come back with ideas.’”
The music and film fed off each other. “As [Greta] was meeting with artists and showing them scenes and artists were coming back with demos, it was really informing how she was working with the film and the cut,” Weaver continues. “It felt like there was this really reciprocal, cool thing happening between how she was making the film and how music was forming that process for her.”
Some artists wrote very specifically to Barbie’s brightly colored world. For example, Lizzo’s opening track, “Pink,” even namechecks Barbie’s best friend Midge. Others went for broader themes that captured the spirit of their scenes, like Charli XCX’s “Speed Drive,” which incorporates elements from Toni Basil’s 1982 hit, “Mickey.”
Not surprisingly, given Barbie’s ubiquity since Mattel rolled her out in 1959, many of the acts had a deep affinity for Barbie from their youth that they brought into the creative process with them. “The only VHS that [Haim] were allowed as kids was [from Barbie] probably from the early ‘90s. They knew every song, and they started singing them over the phone,” Ronson says.
One goal from the start? Land Minaj, whose fans are known as Barbz. “I was like, ‘I don’t know how we have a Barbie soundtrack without Nicki Minaj on it?’” Ronson says. “How do you not have the person who’s kept the word ‘Barbie’ alive in music culture the past 15 years?” However, securing Minaj, her duet partner Ice Spice (Ronson met Ice at midnight in his studio to show her the movie) and samples of Aqua’s 1997 hit “Barbie Girl” included in their song, “Barbie World,” required some high-level negotiation and persistence, as did landing many of the artists.
Ronson says he’d never been so involved in the behind-the-scenes administrative process before in his movie work, and Weaver’s diplomatic skills left him in awe. “He could honestly just become chief negotiator at the U.N.,” Ronson jokes. “Some of the things he pulled off to get the soundtrack over the finish line [between] samples and egos and superstars and other record labels…. All Greta and me had to do was dream it up and get it over the finish line, but the clearances and the playing détente with Sony and Universal… and labels being like, ‘This is happening over my dead body,’ to like, two weeks later getting these things. What he pulled off to get the actual soundtrack is insane.”
For Weaver, who has served as soundtrack album producer for such film and TV projects as The Greatest Showman, Suicide Squad, Furious 7 and Daisy Jones & The Six, navigating with the labels, the studio and Mattel was all in a day’s work.
“Mattel was very involved in the making of the film, but they trusted Greta implicitly,” Weaver says. “Greta really backed and supported us in our music vision. We were able to navigate through whatever the challenges might have been around that to come out the other side with this incredible end product. Ultimately, it’s a family brand and a kid’s brand. We wanted to be very sensitive to that; but at the same time, Greta has made a very forward thinking non-traditional film.”
The offerings for the soundtrack are as colorful as the movie itself. The album comes in several configurations, including hot pink, blue and transparent pink cassettes, as well as CD and hot pink vinyl. There are covers featuring Barbie, as well as a dedicated Ken CD cover. The idea was to appeal to fans of the movie, Barbie collectors and fans of the individual artists.
“We worked really closely with our incredible marketing team here and at the studio and at Mattel to make as many unique music offerings as we could that could reach different parts of the Barbie and the music audience,” Davis says.
Though many of the songs already out, Weaver and Davis are excited to have fans see them in their natural setting. “These records are all strong enough to live in a world by themselves,” Weaver says. “But what’s so amazing is people are now going to get to experience the songs within the four walls of the film and it’s going to give them a whole new life.”
For Ronson, the movie’s release is the culmination of more than 12 months of intense work, as he and Wyatt ended up scoring Barbie as well. The pair had written temporary music for the opening credits, but once Gerwig saw they had some themes, “They started giving us a few more bits to score at a time,” to the point where “we didn’t want anyone else to touch the music of this film,” he says. “We were like, ‘This is ours!’ It was a ton, ton, ton of work. [The movie] overtook my life for a year, but it was completely worth it.”
Barbie track listing:
Lizzo, “Pink”
Dua Lipa, “Dance the Night”
Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice, “Barbie World” (with Aqua”
Charli XCX, “Speed Drive”
KAROL G, “WATATI” (feat. Aldo Ranks)
Sam Smith, “Man I Am”
Tame Impala, “Journey to the Real World”
Ryan Gosling, “I’m Just Ken”
Dominic Fike, “Hey Blondie”
Billie Eilish, “What Was I Made For”
The Kid LAROI, “Forever & Again”
Khalid, “Silver Platter”
PinkPantheress, “Angel”
GAYLE, “Butterflies”
Ava Max, “Choose Your Fighter”
FIFTY FIFTY, “Barbie Dreams” (feat. Kaliii)
Brandi Carlile & Catherine Carlile, “Closer to Fine” (BONUS TRACK)
Mark Ronson, who is a member of SAG-AFTRA, completed this interview before SAG-AFTRA went on strike.
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