Helium vocals and comical lyrics have made Aqua’s Barbie Girl an all-time hit, and the gorgeous European pop anthem, which revolutionized the world in 1997, is still going strong 25 years later. The candy-colored video has racked up over 1.1 billion views on YouTube and any conversation about Greta Gerwig’s upcoming “Barbie” movie ultimately leads to the question: Will “Barbie Girl” be part of the soundtrack?
The answer to this question is no. Which isn’t surprising given that Mattel sued Aqua in the ’90s – and lost – but it’s still a disappointment to many. However, the Danish-Norwegian group is not concerned.
Lynne Nystrom theorized that using “Barbie Girl” in the movie would be too difficult—or, as she puts it, “cheese on cheese.” The spiky-haired Soren Rasted finds the whole situation amusing: “We gotta say we turned it down. Ryan Gosling isn’t good enough!” In the end, they’re excited about the movie. Nystrom continues, “I totally understand why they wouldn’t use it, but it would bring us a lot of interest, no matter what.”
Aqua is ready for that. The band just released a release marking the 25th anniversary of their debut album “Aquarium” on September 23 and plan to ramp up their tour schedule. While some artists distance themselves from their past, Aqua is very comfortable with their place in popular culture.
Scandinavian fashion hit makers are proud of their “Barbie Girl” and happily share an anecdote about the well-known pitch height. “At the time, you couldn’t do auto melody,” Rusted explains. “So you just had to hit her.” That didn’t deteriorate well with Nystrom. “I don’t know how many headphones I’ve smashed,” she laughs. “I’ve been angry for months.” In the end, the singer came up with: “He made the whole track magical, but it took me a long time to admit it.”
As much as critics have read the lyrics of “Barbie Girl” over the years, Aqua just wanted to compose a catchy song. “We had the phrase ‘Come on Barbie, let’s go party’, and we thought it was cool,” Rastead admits shyly. “There was a lot of headlines about plastic surgery at the time, which affected us, but we really wanted to make a fun song. We didn’t think much of it. The hook works really well.”
From the very beginning, Aqua suspected that they were injured in their hands. They had no idea how big it was. “Something magical happened when the song Barbie Girl came out,” Nystrom says. “The whole world exploded overnight.” Rasted remembers when the song broke out in America. “I sent the poster to the Z100 in New York and the phones just lit up.”
But as much as they enjoyed the rush of world fame, there was a downside. “We weren’t prepared for all the negative reactions,” Nystrom says, referring to the anti-feminist accusations leveled at the song. “You know in your heart what your intentions are and read all that it was a little hard to swallow.”
She also vividly remembers Mattel’s lawsuit against the band, which was eventually dismissed. “You had to watch what you were saying the whole time, and sometimes our words were twisted.”
While Aqua is remarkably outspoken about his brief stint at the top, she resents being labeled a single-hit wonderland. The band’s third member, Renee Dave, recalls that “in the UK, ‘Dr Jones’ and ‘Tear Back Time’ took first place as well.” “It showed that we weren’t one-of-a-kind wonders, which they were focusing on a lot at the time.” However, he tends to let the description slip. “When you try to say, ‘No, I’m not a one-time wonder’, it makes you look so weird!”
What is the secret of their success? The difference is attributed to the duo’s structure of the songs, with him and with Nystrøm’s trading lines, and the popular video clips, presented in “Aquascope”. Rasted agrees, theorizing that good songs and memorable videos make it “bigger than life”.
This cartoonish quality combined with the fact that the ’90s was hot again makes Aqua at the same time a huge part of its era and oddly timeless. Just don’t expect them to release new music anytime soon. “We get into the studio once in a while,” Nystrom says. “We recorded a lot during the Covid virus and did some great tunes, but we didn’t finish anything.”
Rasted admits that releasing an album is simply not a priority for the group. “The main thing for us is live gigs,” he says. “Edit the track here and there will be icing on the cake.”
In the meantime, they will continue to play their songs. “‘Aquarium’ has become the soundtrack for many young people,” Rasted offers.
Nystrom adds: “A good tune never dies, it keeps on giving. And Barbie Girl is a prime example of that.”
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