Barbie isn’t just a hit on the big screen; it’s also a hit on the Billboard charts and Spotify.
The Barbie movie, which sees Margot Robbie's titular toy swap her pink fantasy home for the real world, has now made $1.38bn at the box office globally.
And the movie’s soundtrack, which features a range of styles and genres, has also greatly boosted the profiles of every artist lucky enough to be able to ride the Barbie bandwagon. Bloomberg reports that Barbie is bringing back the hit movie soundtrack. And how!
Barbie: The Album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart and scored substantial physical sales with the release of pink vinyl (obviously) and even cassettes. It's another clear example of Gen Z nostalgia leading to the extraordinary rise in cassette sales.
Of course, physical sales are no longer where the bulk of the money is. Streaming's the thing. Featured artists on the Barbie album have all had huge boosts on streaming services. The big single from the album, Dua Lipa’s Dance the Night, has already surpassed 200 million streams on Spotify and nearly 100 million views on YouTube.
To further demonstrate the impact that the movie has had on the world, even the song Push, by Matchbox Twenty - which isn’t featured on the album but is in the movie - charted on Billboard for the first time in 25 years.
And having a song on a hit movie soundtrack isn’t just great marketing and a boost in listenership, it’s lucrative in and of itself. The revenue from licensing songs in movies and shows dubbed “synchronization royalties” grew 22 percent last year and represented 2.4 percent of the music industry’s whopping $640 million global market.
There’s nothing quite as impactful as being the soundtrack to a great cinematic moment.