Michael Buckner for Variety
With Christmas just days away, Ryan Gosling and “Barbie: The Album” producer Mark Ronson have gifted fans a new holiday version of the film’s “I’m Just Ken” musical number. But that’s not all. Gosling has released “Ken The EP,” which includes three new versions of the “Barbie” classic: a holiday version (“Merry Kristmas Barbie”), an acoustic version (“In My Feelings Acoustic”) and a dance version (“Purple Disco Machine Cover”).
Compared to its original, the updated holiday rendition has more of an amplified drum arrangement and distinct new backing vocals: “So, hey, world, check me out, I’m just Ken,” sings Gosling with glee.
In a video teaser shared Dec. 18, Gosling and Ronson were seen working behind a mixing board in a studio decorated with a twinkling Christmas tree while others don Santa hats. Gosling fidgets with the board’s knobs and dials as Ronson watches. “You handle this, Ken,” Ronson tells him.
Gosling lauded the uber-popular “I’m Just Ken” song when presenting Ronson with the Soundtrack of the Year award at Variety‘s annual Hitmakers brunch earlier this month. He quipped, “To ‘Ken’ is to give more than is necessary or required to reflect so that others might shine. I don’t know how to better describe Mark Ronson better than that.”
In accepting the award, Ronson said, “There’s no way to follow that!” He noted “I was so in love with Greta Gerwig and her vision that if she told me to put fly posters that said ‘Barbie’ up and down the West Side Highway, I probably would have done that as well at that point … It was a joy to sit with all these artists and watch them as they watched clips of the film for the first time. And I would see their eyes literally widen as they were being sucked into Greta’s heartfelt technicolor brilliant vision,” Ronson said.
“Barbie” dominated nominations for the 2024 Golden Globe Awards with 10 nods, making the movie the second most-nominated in the 81-year history of the show, tying it with “Cabaret.” Gosling earned a nomination for Best Supporting Actor while “I’m Just Ken” was nominated for Best Original Song for a Motion Picture.
