Mark Ronson on the ‘Barbie’ soundtrack’s bespoke sound

Barbie, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, is the top grossing movie of 2023, generating more than $1.3 billion at the international box office so far.

Warner Bros. Pictures

Mark Ronson isn’t new to this music thing: The hitmaking producer already had several Grammys and an Oscar to his name when he signed up to produce the soundtrack for Barbie. Then the film’s director, Greta Gerwig, asked him to score the film, too, and he hesitated. Ronson sensed, correctly, that Barbie was going to be huge, and he’d never scored a film before. But his reluctance faded once he read Gerwig’s script.

“I was so inspired,” Ronson says. “I love the whole message of it, I love the whole idea of it. Obviously, Barbie‘s story is so wonderful.”

What followed was a year of working with artists like Nicki Minaj, Sam Smith, Billie Eilish and PinkPantheress to conceptualize, produce and compose songs for the album. Some artists were drawn to the project because of Gerwig’s previous work, others because Barbie (the doll) had played an important role in their lives. And some came because of Ronson’s reputation.

Mark Ronson won an Oscar in 2019 for his song “Shallow” from A Star is Born.

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Ronson and Gerwig would talk to the musicians and show them scenes from the movie to illustrate the its tone and arc. The process seemed to work; after watching an early version of Barbie’s car chase scene, Charli XCX wrote “Speed Chase” for the soundtrack.

“And that’s…