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Aug 22, 2023Barbie: The Album is a celebration as colorful and uplifting as the movie itself, and both are highly recommended.
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Aug 7, 2023The only dud is GAYLE’s ‘butterflies’, which does nothing more than showcase the record’s corporate origins. Sampling a Y2K hit would have surely looked good on paper at some point; in reality it’s a confused mish-mash of sounds, the sample appearing as an add-on, the newcomer without the star power of her peers here to hint lyrically at anything of note. That aside, life in plastic does indeed sound fantastic.
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Jul 24, 2023It’s no surprise that Barbie World, the song she shares with her protege Ice Spice, is 109 seconds of pure plastic bliss. Like much of the soundtrack, it fizzes with moreish, sugary filth, simultaneously R-rated and child-friendly.
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Jul 21, 2023Barbie the Album has something for everyone (Brandi Carlile’s loving bonus track cover of the Indigo Girls’ “Closer To Fine” is an especially sweet, sincere touch), and it neatly ties together the playful feminism of the film into an enjoyable musical experience.
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Jul 21, 2023Soundtracks are often merely time capsules of their era, and Barbie The Album captures the bounce, bravado and occasional bad moods of 2023 in technicolor.
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Aug 2, 2023We get some huge heavy hitters who do very good-to-great work. But the record sinks into pink slush during the so-so-filler tracks. Although there are some fantastic high points and some tacky low points, Barbie: The Album still manages to pull through with a cheeky victory, even if it’s qualified.
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Jul 21, 2023Barbie the Album dashes headfirst for airy joy and low-key festivity, all hyperbolic and glittery when its primary focus should be on elucidating the film’s feminist thesis.
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Jul 24, 2023All in all it’s a decidedly mixed bag, with producer Mark Ronson failing to make the experience even remotely coherent, though during this soundtrack’s highlights even the most committed Nolan fanboy might just get caught up in the hype.
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Jul 21, 2023Despite its underwhelming second half, ‘Barbie’ is packed with a surprising diversity of sounds paying homage to the Mattel muse. The soundtrack has some wonderful highs and some miserable lows – but then again, it’s not all rosy in Barbie Land…
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Jul 21, 2023A soundtrack that is always fun, if undeniably erratic – Ronson can’t decide on a consistent tone or approach, instead ping-ponging between satire and celebration, sincerity and spoof.
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Jul 31, 2023It’s a shame nothing about it screams new pop culture staple the way the movie does. There are fine moments, but the highs don’t rise enough to offset the lows.
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Jul 21, 2023True to form, the other Kens on the soundtrack contribute nothing—doze through Dominic Fike’s noodly, acoustic “Hey Blondie,” which exists halfway between “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” and “Hey Soul Sister,” and the Kid Laroi’s howling emo-trap ballad “Forever & Again.” But the girls often can’t prove they’re worthy of main character status either.
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Jul 21, 2023I’m not so daft as to believe that a Barbie soundtrack album should have made for groundbreaking or era-defining art – but on a level of pure enjoyment, listening to a concept album about Barbie does wear thin very quickly.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 19 out of 26
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Mixed: 5 out of 26
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Negative: 2 out of 26
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Jul 22, 2023
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Aug 6, 2023
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Aug 3, 2023This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.