Rob Thomas is glad Matchbox 20's 'Push' wasn't the 'butt of the joke' in Barbie

Barbie Land advisory: This article contains spoilers for Barbie. 

The peppy pink pop of the Barbie soundtrack may be bejeweled with tracks like Dua Lipa's disco pop banger "Dance the Night" and hyperpop odyssey "Speed Drive" from Charli XCX, but there's still room for a little '90s alternative on the cotton candy confection. Case in point: Matchbox Twenty's 1996 hit "Push," which Ken (Ryan Gosling) belts out on the beach, of all places.

Frontman Rob Thomas shared his thoughts on the song's inclusion in the film as well as director Greta Gerwig reaching out for permission for Gosling to re-record his own version.

"I want to preface this by saying that I thought it was hilarious. But in Bring It On, (Kirsten Dunst's character) has this douchey boyfriend," Thomas told USA Today in a July 21 interview. "And there's a scene where he was in his dorm room with a Matchbox Twenty poster in the background. There was a whole period during the '90s where the more successful we got, the bigger target we were. We were an easy takedown. When I got the call for Barbie, they told me, 'Ken's by the fireside, he's playing the song and it's his favorite band.'"

But this didn't immediately quell Thomas's fears that the band wouldn't simply be the "butt of the joke," though it was something he insisted he'd be "fine with" considering his thick skin. When he learned the true breadth of the scene, however, it cemented Gerwig as one of his "crushes" forever.

"To the point where I was on a plane one time and I called my wife, like, 'Baby, Greta Gerwig just came on the plane, oh my God.' So just the fact that it didn't diminish my crush of Greta, that's even better," he said.

When "Push" first shoved its way onto mainstream radio, it was met with less-than-enthusiastic feedback from some. It was mired in controversy after its debut thanks to its subject matter. Lyrics that feminist groups labeled as "misogynistic" at the time like "I wanna push you around" and "I wanna take you for granted," prompted Thomas to defend the track. He instead insisted he had penned a "panoramic song," when speaking to the Washington Post in 1998. "The chorus is just the overall way I was looking at relationships at the time."

Now, it seems "Push" has been given a new lease on life, especially as audiences seem to have a brand new appreciation for the track. As Thomas recalls, Atlantic Records' Julie Greenwald reassured him that, after seeing the movie, "You come out of it loving Ken and loving 'Push." Making audiences fall in love with another decades-old song with a completely new interpretation? It looks like there's truly nothing Barbie can't do.

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