Whether it’s a soundtrack, a score or a song placement, there are countless wrong ways to do music for film and so few ways to make it feel right. There’s very little leeway, which is why it can be so challenging for even the most successful hitmakers to make the transition to film music — especially with a major film event like “Barbie.”
To say that the music for the summer blockbuster has been a success is a vast understatement: Not only is the film’s companion album Variety’s Hitmakers Soundtrack of the Year, the music from the film scored a whopping 11 Grammy nominations across seven categories — including song and record of the year — and four of the five entries nominated for Best Song Written for Visual Media. Billie Eilish’s ballad “What Was I Made For” is up against Dua Lipa’s disco anthem “Dance the Night,” Ryan Gosling’s hilarious “I’m Just Ken” and Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice’s Aqua-sampling “Barbie World.” (“Lift Me Up,” Rihanna’s song from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” is the outlier in the category).
With albums and songs by Amy Winehouse, Adele, Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney, Bruno Mars and many others under his belt, seven-time Grammy-winning producer Mark Ronson is one of the most successful pop songwriter-producers working today, yet his work on the soundtrack to Greta Gerwig’s summer blockbuster “Barbie” film — for which he co-wrote and co-produced five songs, cowrote the score with longtime collaborator Andrew Wyatt, and served as an executive music producer — was a new experience.
“I can play a track for an artist and it’s a banger, right?,” he says. “With movies, it’s completely different. It might be an undeniably great piece of music, but if it’s not matching this unspoken thing that the director has always imagined when they see that image on the screen, it doesn’t work.” Clearly, it did: he and Wyatt are up for the Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media Grammy.
The 17-song soundtrack features bespoke songs by Lizzo, Dua Lipa, Sam Smith, Dominic Fike and costar Ryan Gosling, as well as Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice, Billie Eilish, Karol G, Charli XCX, Tame Impala, Haim and more (Ronson worked on the first five above-mentioned tracks). The film, which Ronson, 47, gradually became more and more involved with, temporarily sidelined work on his next solo album and a memoir of his early years as a DJ and producer, but it’s proven to be a more-than-worthy diversion.
Ronson spoke with Variety about “Barbie” at length back in July — before the film and album were out, so there was a lot he couldn’t say — but got on the phone with us earlier this month to talk further about it, and all the Grammy love.
How did you end up getting so deeply involved with the film?
It started off with me only doing two songs, but they came out well and I got on really well with Greta. I think she felt like I’d be a good kind of sparring partner to help realize her vision for the music, and working on the soundtrack sort of blossomed into scoring the film as well.
Are you happy with the Grammy nominations?
I mean, how could I not be? It’s really amazing, with “What Was I Made for?” and “Dance the Night” and the Ken song and “Barbie World” and the score, it’s really surprising and lovely. The music and the film are so linked — I don’t know if Greta always intended it to be almost a musical — and it’s been so exciting to see the cultural moment the movie has brought, and the music is sort of entwined in the DNA of that. I’m not a super-heavy social media person, but all the videos on TikTok — people crying in their room with the Billie song, and the dance routines to the Dua tune, and even the “SNL” parody when they recreated Greta’s shots and the costumes and everything.
It got four out of five nominations for Best Song Written for Visual Media, which must be a first.
I’m not sure, and especially because there were so many great film and TV songs this year, I felt kinda bad that we hogged the whole thing (laughter). But it was great to see that kind of acknowledgment, and obviously I’m not complaining.
When writing the songs, were you usually in the same room with your collaborators watching scenes from the film?
Yes, on nearly everything I worked on. We rewrote “Dance the Night” so many times to match the picture. Like, Dua was literally coming up with lyrics — “When Margo does that come-hither thing with her fingers, that’s when I want to sing ‘Come along for the ride,’” We actually engineered that song almost like a score. And when Dominic Fike saw the way that Ken looks at Barbie when she’s not paying attention to him on the beach, he said, “Hey Blondie!,” like when the girl that you like in school won’t look your way so you throw rocks or something. (laughter) And for the Lizzo song, we were sitting in the studio watching the scene over and over, and Lizzo just started freestyling along with what was happening on screen, like, “We have to mention that these people are dolled up playing chess by the pool. Why is anyone playing chess by the pool?” We didn’t shy away from calling out the ridiculousness.
I wasn’t in the room with Sam but we watched clips together and talked at length, and they had a really cool talk with Greta about some really deep shit that went above my head, about the feminine mystique and all kinds of stuff. Everything was so driven by the visuals.
The only song we wrote without seeing a lick of the film was “I’m Just Ken,” from the script and conversations with Noah and Greta. It was a quiet, humble ballad when we wrote it, but once we saw the scene we realized, “This is like ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ but with Nerf balls” (laughter) so we rebuilt it. And I know Billie and Finneas only saw 20 minutes of the film to write their song, but they were so moved and understood the emotional weight and the overall sense of the film, even in a very rough form.
A lot of the songs, Lizzo’s in particular, make so much more sense in the film than on their own, almost at the songs’ expense.
That’s a very valid thought. I guess I could say the film was our master. When you’re trying to write a song there’s a competitive side, you always want to write something that could be a hit, and we knew we were making choices sometimes along the way that made the songs, when taken out the context of the film, not be as instant. But we were just like, “We love this film,” and sometimes I would go into my head and be like, “I’m thinking about my ego here, I’m not thinking about Greta and her film,” so I think that’s where we always ended up. And it’s great that [Charli XCX’s] “Speed Drive” and “Dance the Night” and “Barbie World” and other songs have had a great life outside of the film as well.
It’s remarkable that two totally opposite songs, the serious “What Was I Made for?” and the carefree “Dance the Night,” are both up for Grammy song of the year. Were you intentionally making “Dance the Night” kind of lightweight, because of the scene it’s in?
Dua’s lyrics always have a tough edge and a hidden meaning, and they’re kind of defiant — like this image of 12-inch rubber boots smashing a disco ball (laughter). We watched the scene and we loved her [original] lyrics, they were a little more edgy and pointing more toward Barbie’s world about to fall apart 10 minutes further into the film. But it wasn’t our place to foreshadow so much, and also it just wasn’t matching up with what was happening on the screen with Barbie and everybody dancing around, having the time of their lives. So we rewrote it to serve the film. I mean, I probably would have at least had a song on [Lipa’s forthcoming third album] it wasn’t for all the times we kept going back in the studio to rewrite “Dance the Night,” but I think we knew we just had to get it perfect for the film.
Did Ryan Gosling perform “I’m Just Ken” with you and Andrew at your UCLA concert?
No, I can’t wait to get to do that with him.
If the Oscars don’t have Ryan perform that will be a big miss on their part.
That’d be wonderful, but I think we have to get nominated first!
