Gramming-winning music producer Mark Ronson has worked with Amy Winehouse, Adele, Bruno Mars, and Miley Cyrus, among countless others, but his biggest project to date could end up being his latest: putting together the soundtrack for the highly anticipated Barbie movie.
Ronson recently spoke to Vulture and gave plenty of behind-the-scenes details about how the music behind the movie came to life, admitting he was originally driven by the idea of wanting to work with director Greta Gerwig and her partner, Noah Baumbach. But once he got underway, they knew they had to go big.
When it came to assembling the list of artists, he and Gerwig said to each other, "We’re like, 'Let’s just make this fully realized as the thing that it’s supposed to be: this wonderful heartbreak epic that’s totally bats**t.
“We were f**king spoiled for the amount of people that actually even came to the table. It just felt like, let’s have fun as long as what we make is incredible."
For the album's lead single, Dua Lipa's "Dance The Night," he said a common love for dance music was the main inspiration.
"I’ve worked with Dua, but I’m also a fan of Dua’s records; I’m a DJ, so I play Dua records," he says. "It’s all mixed up in the soup. So I’m sure there’s somewhere where Dua and I have similar influences. I think that it felt Future Nostalgia–adjacent because her music does the s**t that I really love, as far as dance music goes: It has an energy, but it’s kind of tough and weird."
Ronson also leaked a bit of info about the next Dua Lipa album, which seems to be heading in a new direction.
"I mean, I’ve heard some of it and it’s incredible," he confesses. "I think that’s why there’s the disco ball that smashes in the video, right? This feels like her triumphant stomp on that era of her music into whatever she does next."
One artist Ronson felt was vital to the project was the leader of the Barbz herself: Nicki Minaj. "It was sort of keeping me up at night: How do we possibly put out a Barbie soundtrack with no Nicki Minaj single? That is the Barbz," he explains.
"I don’t have any personal relationship, I’m just a f**king fan," he continues. "We just had this wonderful miracle alley-oop in how that song ended up going down... The next thing we know, it’s [Ice Spice] and Nicki going back and forth on it. And I’m just like, 'This is a fever dream.' We were already pulling out every single stop possible to try and get Nicki on a song, and now we have this."
For Lizzo's song, "Pink," which kicks off the album, he says they were originally stuck on where to go with it. "We had a hard time cracking the code at first," he says. "I only had two days, she was about to go back on tour or play the Grammys or some s**t. Halfway through the second day, I was just like, 'This isn’t going to work. I’m going back to Greta empty-handed.' Lizzo said, 'You know what? Throw this picture up again.' And she’s like, 'Play the track.' And she just starts narrating what’s going on on the screen. Like, 'Hey, Barbie.'”
Ronson also spilled on songs by GAYLE and Billie Eilish, as well as his involvement in the upcoming Amy Winehouse biopic, which he says, "I read the script, and I really loved [it]."
You can read the full interview here.