Ryan Gosling brings '90s alt-rock Kenergy to Barbie soundtrack with cover of Matchbox Twenty's 'Push'
In the pink utopia that is Barbie Land, the Kens are all about Matchbox Twenty.
Ryan Gosling brings '90s alt-rock Kenergy to the Barbie soundtrack with a cover of the band's 1996 track "Push" (below), one of two just-announced bonus tracks on Barbie: The Album, available now. The second is a cover of Indigo Girls' "Closer to Fine," a duet by Brandi Carlile and wife Catherine. The 1989 folk track, per the trailer, plays on the radio as Margot Robbie's Barbie departs Barbie Land for the real world.
As for "Push," there's a delightful moment in the film that features the unexpected track. But no big spoilers here.
The starry album includes contributions from Dua Lipa (who plays Mermaid Barbie herself, with "Dance the Night"), Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice ("Barbie World"), Billie Eilish and Finneas ("What Was I Made For"), and Karol G and Aldo Ranks ("Watati"). Other artists include Lizzo, Charli XCX, Sam Smith, Tame Impala, Haim, Khalid, and Dominic Fike, among others.
Notably, "Push" isn't Gosling's only contribution to the soundtrack. In the film, the La La Land star performs a bombastic '80s rock ballad, "I'm Just Ken," featuring Slash and Wolfgang Van Halen on the guitar and Josh Freese on the drums. The catchy track, penned by soundtrack producers Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, centers on Ken's sorrows over being No. 2 to Barbie. "Where I see love, she sees a friend / What will it take for her to see the man behind the tan and fight for me?" he belts out.
During EW's Around the Table with the cast and director Greta Gerwig (above, conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike), Gosling says he had to tap into his child actor past to play the role of the musical doll. (The former Mouseketeer began his career on Disney Channel's The All New Mickey Mouse Club in the early '90s, performing alongside the likes of pre-pop stars Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, and Christina Aguilera.)
"At a certain point I thought I had left that kid behind, and I realized that I needed his help to make this movie," Gosling says. "So I had to go back and make peace with him and ask for his help. It was good for me."
And oh what a journey it's been to inhabit Ken. "It was like, at one moment I was a human male in my backyard picking up a Ken doll, and then somehow magically I had become that doll and I was being picked up by Greta Gerwig, and the only way to become human again was to just follow her very specific directions," he says.
Listen to Gosling's cover of "Push" above.
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