There's no shortage of one-hit wonders who are actually worth millions. If a song is big enough, the money generated from it can last a lifetime. That is if the musician has any foresight and the right financial advisor. Like one-hit wonders such as Vanilla Ice, many fans wonder what happened to Aqua, the Danish-Norwegian band responsible for "Barbie Girl".
"Barbie Girl" was an instant hit when it was released in 1997. While no music critic seemed to believe that "Barbie Girl" was high art, the vast majority of them could see that it was a pop culture sensation. The bubblegum pop song was fun, well put together, and insanely catchy. In 2022, the band is still touring with it as they try to sell their music to a larger market than just their diehard and utterly loyal fanbase. But "Barbie Girl" got into a lot of trouble when it was released. One of the reasons was that some critics loathed the overtly sexual nature of the song's content and meaning. Then, of course, the owners of the product that the band was seemingly parodying were positively irate...
Is "Barbie" By Aqua Inappropriate?
Of course, the answer to this question is entirely in the eye of the beholder. In Mattel's eyes (the company that owns Barbie and Ken), the song was downright debauchery, and they were furious when it became successful. Of course, their dissatisfaction and eventual lawsuit against Aqua would mean nothing to the fans. As of 2017, the smash hit song has sold more than 8 million copies and has done wonders for the debut album, "Aquarium".
Six months after the song was released, Mattel sued Aqua through MCA Records, who owned their North American rights. In their lawsuit, they claimed that the song "violated their trademark" and turned the wholesome Barbie toy into a sex object. This lawsuit went on for years and sparked a countersuit from Aqua against Mattel. Both were thrown out by a judge in 2022. According to Medium, Judge Alex Kozinski stated that the song was protected under the First Amendment as it was clearly a parody. It's reported that he even said, "[Both] the parties are advised to chill".
In an interview with Bulon, Aqua's lead singer, Lene Nystrøm, claimed that Mattel warped the meaning of the song and made it far more sexual than it truly was. Sure, there were a few suggestive lyrics, but that wasn't their message. Nor did they mean to sound misogynistic. According to Lene, this interpretation was entirely created by Mattel.
"I do believe that Mattel saw an opportunity to get some attention. Because the song was quite innocent, and it wasn’t sexist at all; it wasn’t our point to make the song sexist, at least," Lene explained. "It was kind of more making fun of the Pamela Anderson kind-of girl that was existing at that time, and still are, of course. But it’s a super-innocent song if you listen to all the other s*** that’s out there, you know?"
What Is The Meaning Of "Barbie Girl"?
Even though Lene Nystrøm blames Mattel for the misrepresentation of the meaning of the song, the writer of the Medium article and the interviewer at Rolling Stone who did Aqua's recent oral history both stated that the song had some sexually suggestive lyrics. They include, "I’m a blond bimbo girl in a fantasy world", "Dress me up, make it tight, I’m your dolly," as well as the somewhat iconic, "You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere."
But according to Aqua's René Dif, this wasn't the meaning of the song at all.
"The message is that it’s OK to be the person you are and look the way you look and be confident in that," René said to Rolling Stone. "You don’t necessarily have to have plastic surgeries to be a better person. All these metaphors in the song were taboo to talk about, but we came out with a tongue-in-cheek way to present our song. It’s a pop song, but it’s also a song about how it’s OK to be who you are, love who you are, and be yourself."
Despite this, another member of Aqua, Søren Rasted admitted that some parts were a tad sexual.
"It was, of course, a song about plastic surgeries. Other parts of the songs were just sexual," Søren said. "When we had the lawsuit from Mattel, which came later, the lawyers made us change the story. They said, 'Please don’t say it’s anything sexual.' But we were not really trying to make a statement. We were just trying to write a fun song."
While many music fans are always trying to decipher the meaning of one hit wonders like "Barbie Girl", the band's lead singer believes this is missing the point...
"It’s tongue-in-cheek. It’s pop music," Lene Nystrøm added. "If you want to see the layers to it, there’s all the layers you want. But we kind of took the p*** out of the Pamela Anderson Baywatch perfect picture with silicon b**bs. We wanted to take the p*** out of that kind of perfect girl. That was the main thing we discussed. We didn’t say it very often, but that was the main thing behind it."
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTErZ%2Bippeoe6S7zGigrGWRpsKiv4ybmKuamZp6qLXRpWSippGlvbO7z6ugmqyVYq6vsIywn5qsXZ7AbrXTrGSmnZGjtq%2Bzjg%3D%3D