A music video can make or break an artist. While Rihanna's video for "Pon de Replay" may not have been anything spectacular, it certainly helped propel her first single into the big leagues, ultimately setting her up for one of the most impressive careers in the music industry. The same can be said for Aqua's "Barbie Girl".
While many consider Aqua to be a one-hit-wonder from the late 1990s, the Danish-Norweigian Europop band actually made enough songs to tour the world to this day. But there's no doubt that their 1997 hit "Barbie Girl" is what they're best known for. Despite the song receiving backlash for its inappropriate elements, it became an anthem of an entire generation. And a catchy one at that. Even people who hate the song know most of the words. And Aqua's music video is still popular. At the time of this writing, it has more than 1 billion (yes, with a 'B') views on Youtube. Here's the truth about how they actually made the music video...
The Director Hated The "Barbie Girl" Song
Despite getting into a very public lawsuit with Mattel (the owners of Barbie and Ken) Aqua decided to double-down on the premise of their hit song in its music video. A few months after the song came out, as part of their debut album "Aquarium", Aqua's members René Dif, Lene Nystrøm, Søren Rasted, and Claus Norreen hired Peder Pederson to direct the video. Funnily enough, Peder was one of the people who actually really, really didn't like the song when it came out.
"I was just starting out as a director, and it was hard," Peder Pedersen said in an oral history of "Barbie Girl" by Rolling Stone. "The night before I got the request to do 'Barbie Girl,' I was doing some grainy black-and-white art stuff in a basement. While we were setting up, 'Barbie Girl' came on the radio. I remember saying [angrily], 'What the h*ll is this?' The next day, I got a call asking if I wanted to do the video for it. I went [cheerfully], 'Yes, of course!'"
Despite having no love for the song, Peder treated the musicians and their music with respect. So much so that he was hired to direct a few of their music videos, including for "Doctor Jones" and "Around The World".
Where Did The "Barbie Girl" Song Music Video Come From?
Peder Pedersen was the main behind the concept of the "Barbie Girl" music video, which was filmed in just two days in a warehouse in Copenhagen.
"In my view, the video needed to be like the song, cartoonish, that kind of feel," director Peder Pedersen explained. "That’s also what the group had in mind. We had a session where we went, 'What does Barbie do? What kind of props does she have? Well, she has a house, a car, a horse, a hairdryer, a telephone, a dog …' Then I went back and did a complete storyboard for it. And we had a timeline saying, 'Barbie does a lot of things, and it ends in a party.'"
While the life of a Barbie was ultimately the inspiration for the music video, Peder also pulled ideas from a number of incredibly surprising sources.
"We had watched Spike Jonze’s video for 'Sabotage' by the Beastie Boys. I love those crime movies and exploitation movies that they were referencing. It was an inspiration since it had the Beastie Boys playing characters," Peder continued. "That was a good reference for me to say, 'If we can go this way and have a kind of irony, we can go a long way.' Our references for the looks were Hanna-Barbera cartoons like The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo. That made it look different from all the other videos."
Who Sang "Barbie Girl"?
The main voices in the "Barbie Girl" song are René Dif and Lene Nystrøm. The latter played the titular character in the music video, but she absolutely did not want to look like a Barbie. This is what Peder originally wanted, but Lene was really opposed to the idea. This eventually caused conflict on the set.
"I don’t get angry very often. You can stretch me far," Aqua's lead singer Lene Nystrøm said in an interview with Rolling Stone. "But I had my own kind of opinion about that. I didn’t want to look like Barbie. That’s against the whole point of the song. I came into the dressing room and the stylists were there. We had a long, hard argument. Universal came in. The director came in. And I just stood my ground."
Despite some conflicts, the music video came together as per the vision of the director. And even he was surprised by how much of a success the video was deemed.
"We were all pretty young," Peder said. "It’s not like today where you have to think about everything. We didn’t know it would go and be viewed so many times."
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