Mark Ronson-produced Barbie soundtrack makes UK chart history
The soundtrack features contributions from the likes of Lizzo, Billie Eilish, Dominic Fike, Dua Lipa, Charli XCX and more
Image: Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images
The soundtrack for the Barbie movie has made UK chart history for having the most amount of songs ever in the top of the Singles Chart.
Produced by Mark Ronson, the vibrant record, which features the likes of Nicki Minaj, Ice Spice, Dua Lipa and Sam Smith, accompanies the Greta Gerwig-directed box office hit which stars Margot Robbie as a “stereotypical” Barbie in Barbieland, as she tries to grapple with her sudden human-like changes.
The album is now the first soundtrack to have three songs all feature in the Top Five, as well as breaking the record for most songs (six in total) in the Top 40, these are:
- What Was I Made For, Billie Eilish – number three
- Dance The Night, 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
It landed at the same time as the film’s release just over a week ago, which has already grossed $700 million at the box office, on Friday 21 July.
Speaking to the BBC, Barbie music supervisor George Drakoulias says: “Nobody said no. Everybody was really excited. It was a perfect symbiotic relationship of the music driving the movie and the movie driving the music.
“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,” he concludes.
You can listen to the album below:
Following its release, Ronson explained how he tried to serve the movie, without being generic or predictable: “I wanted to get the job, but I also didn’t want to just give them some generic dance shit. I wanted to do something I’ve never done before,” he told NME.
He later added, “The thing I learned very, very quickly doing the score for Barbie is that you’re always serving the picture. You’re always serving the emotion. You have to turn off all the things you know about making pop and rock and soul music for the last 30 years. Yes, it needs to be beautiful, but sometimes you just need to get the fuck out the way.”
Ronson also recently revealed that the Barbie soundtrack “overtook his life for a year”, and that gathering and recording the soundtrack’s A-list artists was “a ton, ton, ton of work”.
