Scattered throughout his studio, the executive producer of the soundtrack to “Barbie”, and a music scholar known for his work with the likes of Amy Winehouse and Lady Gaga , has a few “leftovers” scattered around the room. A doll is placed in a permanent split, stretched out over a Moog synthesizer. Another is designed to resemble primatologist Jane Goodall.
“I went to Toys R Us and couldn’t find a single Ken,” he laughs. Fittingly, “that’s the theme of the movie.” Mattel HQ ended up shipping a few; the Ken who remains in Ronson’s study is, appropriately, shirtless.
Finding the sound of “Barbie,” poised to become one of the biggest box office hits of 2023, required careful consideration and research for a film with such a rich visual palette. In the end, he produced a stacked soundtrack that included Lizzo, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa (who also stars in the film), and more.
But it started with a simple text message.
The project’s music supervisor, George Drakoulias, shot Ronson a quick “Barbie?” Ronson read the script and participated. He also composed the music for “Barbie” with his collaborator Andrew Wyatt. Ronson is no stranger to working on film scores, but executive producing a soundtrack album and music for an entire film, let alone a film of this size, was new territory. “It was a lot of learning on the job,” he says.
The soundtrack assignment began with two tracks: a pop song for a big dance number and an ’80s power ballad for Ken (he names a genre with more “bombastic, self-aware silliness,” as Ronson calls it).
First things first. Ronson came up with a chorus and a beat: a departure from his all-too-obvious first plan of writing “80s sugary pop” and instead landing on a “groovy, melodic thing…with some toughness.” “, perfect for Dua. Lipa . It became “Dance the Night,” Lipa’s song featured in the film’s main trailer.
Ken’s song came out differently. For the most part, Ronson works on instrumentals: When he wrote “Shallow” with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper for “A Star Is Born,” for example, he only contributed lyrics to fill in the gaps: the “surface, it doesn’t hurt.” we ”, line, as he remembers him. But for the song that would become Ryan Gosling’s “I’m Just Ken,” Ronson couldn’t avoid the lyric: “I’m just Ken, anywhere else would be a 10.”
So he sent director Greta Gerwig a demo with just a few lines, including some deliciously mouthy lyric about “blonde fragility.” She sent it to Gosling, who plays Ken in the movie, and knew right away that he needed to sing it. What could have been the soundtrack to any scene in the film became her own musical moment.
Early on, Gerwig used the Bee Gees and ’70s disco as a reference point for Ronson.
“You know about Chicago (Disco Demolition), where everyone burned their disco records, ‘Saturday Night Fever’ had reached its peak and the poor Bee Gees were saying, ‘All we wanted to do was make people dance! What did we do wrong?’” Ronson says. “That’s ‘Barbie’.”
If anything, that idea is more thematic than a sonic guide. The mood board was extensive and also included “Dolly Parton, Olivia Newton John, ‘Nine to Five,'” Ronson explains.
He talks about why the “Barbie” soundtrack spans pop genres, including a reggaeton track courtesy of Karol G, “Watati,” bubblegum K-pop from girl group Fifty Fifty featuring Kaliii on “Barbie Dreams,” and the ballad of piano conducted in falsetto “What was I made for?” by Billie Eilish.
For Atlantic Records, which released the soundtrack, collaboration and diversity were key.
“All of these artists were hired early on to do screenings with Mark, Greta and the filmmakers. They would see scenes that they were going to write their music for,” says Brandon Davis, executive vice president and co-head of pop A&R at the label. “Each of these artists wrote lyrics about the specific ways that Barbie was important to them.”
Ronson echoes the sentiment.
“Karol G said: ‘I’m here because I love Barbie. I was not expecting this amazing movie. This is amazing,’” he says. “And HAIM had this encyclopedic knowledge. The only VHS they were allowed in the 90s, when they were kids, was this Barbie one. They knew every song.”
Others were assigned a message: Lizzo’s “Pink,” which ends with a voiceover by Helen Mirren, was inspired by the lead Barbie, played by Margot Robbie, living her perfect day. And because the film is a comedy with real-world complications, humor played a big part in the composition: It’s in Dominic Fike’s “Hey Blondie,” as well as plenty of samples of Charli XCX’s “Speed Drive.”
“(Soundtracks) is an area where we crack the code and figure out how to make it work in a way that we support our partners creatively,” says Kevin Weaver, president of Atlantic Records West Coast, citing the work. Atlantic on other major soundtracks including the “Fast & Furious” franchise, “The Fault in Our Stars” and “The Greatest Showman,” which produced such hits as Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth’s “See You Again,” “Boom Clap” by Charli XCX and “This Is Me”, respectively.
But unlike those movies, part of the “Barbie” acquisition process required a trip to the doll factory, where Atlantic executives were able to witness the doll-making process from start to finish.
When working with legendary intellectual property, a soundtrack comes with some risks. Are you bringing back Aqua’s 1997 hit “Barbie Girl” or are you reimagining it? Surely Nicki Minaj must appear: her fans are called Barbz.
“I remember, no offense, he had a song on the ‘Ghostbusters’ remake and I think six of the 12 songs were reinterpretations of Ray Parker Jr. (theme from ‘Ghostbusters’),” says Ronson. “Everything just clicked on the single we have with Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice,” he continued, referring to the rework of “Barbie Girl.”
“I’ve never executive produced anything before,” says Ronson. “I love this movie. We had an amazing partner at Atlantic Records.”
“And then do the score, but it was a lot to learn on the job. It was still a job he had never done before. … It’s fun to show people different scenes and make them dream big.”