Mark Ronson On Making The Barbie Soundtrack
Mark Ronson has reflected on the making of the hit soundtrack to Barbie in a new interview with The Guardian.
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“In the very beginning,” said the producer of the soundtrack, which eventually ended up being a UK No 1 album, “there were only going to be two songs.”
Ronson went on to discuss one of the surprise hits from the album, I’m Just Ken, sung by actor Ryan Gosling. According to Ronson, director Greta Gerwig “flipped out over it. I remember she wrote back, saying: ‘Ryan says this song speaks to him very deeply’. I was like: ‘Was he being sarcastic?’ Because that’s a very emotional, heartfelt sentiment. She said: ‘I don’t think so.’
“The next thing we knew, Greta said Ryan’s down to sing it, and we are going to rewrite this battle scene to incorporate it. These brilliant comedy writers think our song is good enough to actually put into this script … We kept building it out from there.”
Ronson also talked about the making of Dua Lipa‘s huge hit single Dance The Night, which soundtracked a key moment in the movie. “We rewrote it twice,” said Ronson, going on to reveal that the first version felt “a little too anodised, like we had corrected too much”. Eventually the song came together at “the 11th hour… We did the strings the day before it went to mastering.”
The album was not only a massive hot – also reaching No 2 on the US Billboard chart – but it has already won multiple awards, including Best Soundtrack at the Hollywood Music In Media and Billboard Music awards. It’s also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media. Meanwhile Dance The Night and What Was I Made For by Billie Eilish are nominated for Song Of The Year.