'Barbie Girl' turns 25, Aqua talks of its legacy and absence from upcoming 'Barbie' movie

Barbie Girl, a novelty hit for decades has turned 25 years old and the music group Aqua has spoken up on its legacy and absence from the upcoming Barbie movie.

Aqua's Barbie Girl became a spontaneous hit after its release in 1997. The high-pitched vocals, kitschy lyrics and overall flashy music video has collected 1.1 billion views on YouTube.

As per Variety, the recent question mark is whether Barbie Girl will be a part of Greta Gerwig’s 2023 release Barbie, starring Margaret Robbie and Ryan Gosling.

In an interview, Lene Nystrøm, a member of the group, posited that the music in the movie will be like "cheese on cheese."

Another member, Søren Rasted, also said, "We should say we turned it down. Ryan Gosling is not good enough! 

Adding further, Nystrøm said, "I totally understand why they didn’t use it, but it’s going to bring us a lot of attention, no matter what."

On September 23, Aqua released a 25th Anniversary edition of their debut album Aquarium and plan to jack up their tour schedule.

The Danish-Norwegian group shared an anecdote of the song's infamously high pitch, Rasted explained, "At that time you couldn’t do autotune, So you just had to hit it."

Nystrøm laughingly shared, "I don’t know how many headsets I smashed, I was furious for months. It made the whole track magical, but it took me a long time to admit it."

Rasted talked about the catchy lyrics of the song, "We had the line, ‘C’mon Barbie, let’s go party,’ and thought it was great. There were a lot of headlines about plastic surgery at the time, which influenced us, but we really just wanted to make a fun song. We didn’t put that much thought into it. The hook just worked really, really well."

The group also talked about the song's popularity, with Nystrøm saying, "something magical happened when ‘Barbie Girl’ came out. The whole world exploded overnight.

Rasted remembered when the song came out in America, "Our label sent it to Z100 in New York and the phones just lit up."

The group also talks about the negative reactions they received, referring to the anti-feminist accusations leveled against the music. They revealed they were not "prepared" for the negative reactions.

 Nystrøm concluded the conversation by saying, "A good melody never dies, it just keeps on giving. And ‘Barbie Girl’ is a perfect example of that."