Barbie’s already taken over the box office and now the film’s soundtrack has conquered the UK music charts too.
Tracks by Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa and Nicki Minaj have stormed straight into the top five since the pink-tinged blockbuster’s release one week ago.
And they weren’t the only songs from the star-studded album to hit the chart.
Anywhere else he’d be a top 10, but Ryan Gosling brought some Kenergy at number 25 with his ballad I’m Just Ken.
Bosses of the Official Singles Chart say it’s the first time three tracks from a soundtrack have reached the top five at the same time.
And they say it made history with a total of six tracks 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 film’s music supervisor George Drakoulias tells BBC Newsbeat you’d be wrong.
“Nobody said no,” he says. “Everybody was really excited.”
That included 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 enticed Mark on 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 massive marketing campaign.
Songs from the 17-track album have been steadily released in the run-up to the film’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.
Source: BBC
