
At this point in the process, it was shortly after her song “Munch (Feelin’ U)” had become a viral sensation.
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When thinking through how to include the song on the soundtrack, Ronson says they decided to give it to the “most exciting new thing in music”: Ice Spice.

I hadn’t also figured that, of course, he would sell this song better than anyone because he is Ken.” He was just nailing it because he’s such an amazing actor. (Fans of the actor will remember that he began his career in the Mickey Mouse Club, and memorably sang in Blue Valentine and, more recently, La La Land.) “Then, as we started going, he started to warm up. “I wasn’t sure how much to push him and what he’s quite capable of,” he tells TIME. The actor responded that it spoke to him “deeply.” Ronson’s musical partner Andrew Wyatt wrote the rest of the verses, and Ronson flew out to London to record the vocals with Gosling.

Ronson recorded a demo of the song and sent it to Gerwig, who played it for Gosling. “I went into the studio one day, and I got the idea for the line, ‘I’m just Ken, anywhere else I’d be a 10,’ and I thought: ‘That’s his whole life.’” Ronson knew that Gosling was the perfect Ken, and the song for the character just sort of popped into his head. Barbie is the subject of his desire, but the feeling isn’t always mutual. That quality can also be seen in the story of Ken, who is distinctively a himbo-a sweet, well-meaning man who might not always be the brightest. This sense of a “naive wanting to bring pleasure to the world” became a touchstone for the album. “In the film, she just wants to make everybody happy and can’t understand why she’s so problematic or why people hate her.” “You just see the Bee Gees so crestfallen and thinking, ‘Wait, why does everyone hate us so much?’ Which is such a strong parallel to Barbie,” Ronson says, referring to the backlash the doll has received around her unrealistic proportions, among other things. He watched the 2020 HBO documentary The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, which featured a scene about Disco Demolition Night in 1979 in Chicago, which marked the end of the genre’s popularity.
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The first two songs made for the movie were Dua Lipa’s shimmering disco-pop number, “Dance the Night,” and Gosling’s ‘80s power ballad, “I’m Just Ken.” When conceiving the album, Ronson says he saw parallels between Barbie and the rise and fall of disco (along with its numerous resurrections). Read more: Why It Took 64 Years to Make a Barbie Movie Nailing the sound: from the rise and fall of disco to the depths of Ken’s soul “This was really important to a lot of people. But he saw that in addition to the filmmaker’s reputation, Barbie herself was a significant draw. The HAIM sisters, who called themselves “Barbie specialists,” told him about growing up in the ‘90s and being allowed only one VHS tape: a Barbie film with “cheesy songs.” “I thought everyone was here because Greta Gerwig is making this awesome movie, and there’s been all this buzz around it,” Ronson tells TIME. “Karol G was instantly telling us how much Barbie meant to her,” he says.

As they started talking with the musicians, they also realized that each one had meaningful relationships with the doll herself. Gerwig and Ronson showed artists about 20 minutes of the film to give them a sense of its tone and narrative and told each one where they envisioned their song falling in the story. The overall sound they settled on is a balance of tongue-in-cheek girl power and pop anthems, alongside heartfelt, wistful tunes like HAIM’s “Home” and Tame Impala’s “Journey to the Real World.” Ronson says that those vibes were juxtaposed organically: every artist saw the scene they were going to write for and approached the songs with their own distinct style of music.
