Mark Ronson lost a lot of sleep while crafting the Barbie soundtrack. How could he not? Everyone and their mother has plans to see the movie, which is out this Friday. In fact, the Greta Gerwig-directed feature is predicted to earn over £100 million at the box office this weekend. (That’s a lot of ears to impress.) In 2022, when Gerwig offered the gig to the legendary producer, he knew the music could easily make or break Barbie. But the thing is, when Greta Gerwig asks for your help? You deliver.
“She sent me some playlists for inspiration and asked if I wanted to make songs for the film,” Ronson, 47, tells me over Zoom. “I was like, hell yeah.” There was only one issue. Ronson wanted to include Nicki Minaj—she is the Barb, after all—he just wasn’t sure how to pull it off. Well, Ronson is a Grammy-winning producer—who’s worked with stars like Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga, Adele, and Bruno Mars—so it wasn't a hard sell. Cut to Minaj and Ice Spice's “Barbie World,” a remix of Aqua’s 1997 “Barbie Girl” anthem. It's three minutes of pure magic. “That’s some shit we couldn’t have dreamed or wished up,” he says.
For Ronson, the Barbie soundtrack may very well mark his most ambitious project to date. Also credited as a composer on the film, Ronson's tracks score Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken’s (Ryan Gosling) adventures, as they leave their idyllic home for a chance to live amongst humans. You'll have to see the movie to learn how that pans out. Just know that, if you do, you're bound to get at least one of Ronson's songs stuck in your head. The Barbie soundtrack is a pop lover's dream, featuring a dance floor hit by Dua Lipa, along Minaj and Ice Spice's clever rap, a summery groove by Dominic Fike, a power ballad from Lizzo, and more.
Below, Ronson opens up about undertaking such a massive project, working with Hollywood's most coveted artists, and the creation of Ryan Gosling's "I'm Just Ken."
This interview was conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike.
ESQUIRE: Have you been keeping up with the reactions to Barbie so far? People are already excited about Ken’s song.
MARK RONSON: I can't talk about it, because nobody's seen the movie–and I don't know what I'm allowed to talk about. What’s happened? Do people know that there's a power ballad now? You have to tell me.
They do.
[Ronson sees my the name of my editor—who's hosting the Zoom and promises he isn't listening—on his screen.]
The person whose name I see on the screen. Brady? Is he from Esquire or Warner Brothers?
Brady’s from Esquire.
OK, so I don't have anybody who can tell me like, “You're not supposed to talk about that yet.”
Nope.
OK. Basically, I loved the script. I don't wanna sound obsequious, but I was such a fan of Greta and her other films. Lady Bird, especially. And Noah [Baumbach] as well. I just read the script and thought, This is the funniest thing I've ever read. Even if I don't get this gig, I know this is gonna be my favourite movie next year. This was made for me.
Dua Lipa, "Dance the Night"
What was the first song you worked on?
The first one was “Dance The Night" with Dua Lipa. They said, “We shoot the scene in two weeks and we need a big dance number." Then the verbiage got a little more cocky, from “dance number" to “summer smash.” And I was like, Wait, this is a song that I haven't even started. We have to temper expectations.
Also, I knew they had to choreograph it. I could make a track that we all liked, but then I could go to Dua and she might say, “I’m not feeling the beat. Can we do something in this tempo?” So it was already a precarious thing, having them choreograph a huge dance number to a song that didn’t exist yet. Barbie, when you think about it, could go kind of syrupy Euro, right? There was something [cool] about keeping it a little tough and meaner. That's what Dua does in all her best music, anyway. It always has some edge. So I made this track with that in mind.
What happened next?
The other thing they needed was a Ken song for Ryan Gosling. Ken’s mainly driven by the idea that Barbie doesn't like him. He does all these things to try and impress her, and he’s maybe not the brightest tool in the shed. It was so easy to feel for this character right off the bat. I'm not usually a lyrics person. Usually, I work on the track and the chords. But I was walking down the street and the lyric came in my head: “I'm just Ken / Anywhere else I'd be a ten.” That's his story. I'm so hot. Why won't she see this?”
I thought, OK, well that’s kind of funny and it sounds like a chorus. Then, I had this other lyric—something like, “Me and all my blonde fragility.” I thought it was kind of cute, but I was like, These are great comedy writers. I don’t want them to feel like I’m overstepping. I don’t want them to hit me back and say, “Uh, leave the jokes to us.” I was nervous—but in a good way—to see if they liked what I sent over. Then, I got a text from Greta, and she said, “We love this, this is awesome. Are you saying something about blonde fragility in there? That’s funny. Go for it.”
I know you were originally hired to work on the soundtrack, but you’re credited with scoring the film as well. How did that happen?
Once they shot the movie, they realised, Well this little two-and-a-half-minute song that you wrote ["I’m Just Ken"], this is now a seven-minute scene. So what are we gonna do for the rest of it? Andrew Watt [Ronson's production collaborator] and I essentially scored the rest of the scene. We made transitions and other movements, because it would have been boring to repeat sections of the song instrumentally, while all this crazy stuff was happening on-screen. We ended up scoring our first scene by accident, and I guess that proved that we could score the film as well.
Was Greta heavily involved in making the soundtrack and score? Or did she just let you do your thing?
I did all the soundtrack stuff by myself, then Andrew and I did the score together. So the soundtrack was a little different. At that point, there was still another composer working on the film. Greta had a clear vision of the music she wanted—and great instincts. My only job was to do the music for the film. What's amazing is that she was able to edit and finish the film while also giving so much attention to the music. Together, we came up with a little dream list of people to include, like Lizzo, Nicki Minaj, and Charli XCX. Unbelievably, so many of them ended up on the soundtrack.
"Barbie World (with Aqua)," Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice
When I first saw Barbie's first trailer, I was entranced by the visuals—it’s exactly how you’d imagine Barbie’s universe as a kid. How did you come up with a soundscape without making the film seem childlike?
The movie has this brightness to it, but it also has like so much heart. It’s optimistic, but it has these existential questions about who you want to be, and if you would leave a perfect world. So we used instrumentation that felt bright and synthetic while making sure that, emotionally, it was also weighty and grounded. That's what you always try to do when you make a song. Unless you're trying to make something that's pure pop, you want to create a song that feels good to nod your head to. But if you go two layers down, you're like, Oh this is moody or melancholy. That was the goal.
Did you pre-plan which scenes you wanted the musicians to write about?
Yeah, we did. We thought if we just showed people the movie, we would get a bunch of songs that were vaguely about having a good time. That's not what we wanted and Greta had really strong ideas, too. For Charli XCX, I said, “I know this isn't going to sound the most exciting to you, but there’s this thing that we think you would kill it for. It’s a car chase scene.” She was like, “I love that. That speaks to me immensely.” So we showed her the car chase and she absolutely nailed it. She has “Vroom Vroom” and other songs about cars, so it made sense.
With other songs, it's annoying because I can't talk about the two that really answer this question. They haven’t been announced yet. I’m not trying to be coy.
That’s OK.
I wish I could tell you.
Me too. Which song was the easiest to produce?
None of them? But what was so great about “Dance The Night” and “I'm Just Ken,” was that we had so much time. We started working on them in March or April of 2022. What year is it now?
2023.
Yeah, OK. I was just making sure. I was like, “It's not 2024, is it?!”
Ryan Gosling, "I'm Just Ken"
Not yet!
Anyway, the song that came the easiest was Dominic Fike's. When he came in to record, we had a specific scene in mind. It’s on the beach when you first see Barbie. I really loved the song. It had a great hook, but it wasn’t working with the scene. When we finished it, I thought, How am I going to make this work? Change the drums? Make it more upbeat?
With literally 20 minutes to go in the session—which is always the case—I was like, “You wanna just try one more idea?” And he said, “Sure.” So his drummer, Ryan, played a two-bar drum loop, Dominic picked up a guitar, I picked up the bass, and we just started jamming. It was a very fun, beachy groove. Then Dom started scribbling, and sang, “Hey Blondie.” It was so cool because it came from Ken's point of view. You know, there’s only so long that you can be stepped on by your crush before you become snarky toward them. That's what happened with “Hey, Blondie.” It was a little snarky.
And which song was the hardest to work on?
“I’m Just Ken.” It goes over all these different scenes. Other than the actual score, it was the most intensive thing. We'd write a passage thinking it was the best way to get from one section to another, and then they’d say, “Oh no, we just edited that bit out. Now it’s three seconds less.”
I don't know how to explain that song. It's just such a weird, amazing, eccentric opus. It’s like Queen or Meatloaf at points—I don’t even listen to Meatloaf. I’m just throwing that out 'cause that’s what I heard somebody else say, so I should be careful. But I'm incredibly proud of that song. When we first saw those ads, with the meme, “She's everything. He's just Ken,” I was like, Oh my god, they took our song and made it the campaign.
Bria McNeal is a Manhattan based journalist who is patiently awaiting B5's revival. When she's not writing about all things entertainment, she can be found watching TV or trying to DIY something (likely, at the same time). Her work has appeared in NYLON, Refinery29, InStyle, and her personal newsletter, StirCrazy.
