Barbie soundtrack shatters Spotify records

Barbie soundtrack shatters Spotify recordsSpotify users listened to the 19 songs from the extended edition of The Barbie Album almost 52 million times in just three days.

by James Richardson

26-07-2023 09:46

in Music

While many across the world can't wait for the new Barbie movie's release, countries like Vietnam has banned the film from being released. Image via Instagram @Barbiemovie

According to analysts Spotify users listened to the 19 songs from the extended edition of The Barbie Album almost 52 million times in just three days.

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Launched on the same day as the much-anticipated movie, the namesake album features 11 brand-new songs and eight previously released tracks.

Barbie breaks Spotify records The track Barbie World, by Nicki Minaj, Ice Spice and Aqua, accounts for 10.3 million of the streams - the most of all the tracks on the official movie soundtrack.

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Meanwhile, Aqua gained the most new listeners over the movie's opening weekend among all the artists featured on the album.

This is according to the educational music platform Music Industry How To, who monitored the Spotify data for all Barbie-related music before and after the movie's release on 21 July.

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The songs on The Barbie Album (The Best Weekend Ever Edition) totalled 51,985,020 streams on Spotify over the first three days since the movie's release.

Nicki Minaj's rendition of Aqua's classic Barbie Girl, featuring the original band and also Ice Spice, is the most streamed song from The Barbie Album.

Barbie World was listened to 10,308,180 times in just one weekend. First released on Spotify on 23 June, its total stream count stood at 65,156,199 as at the end of 23 July.

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Dua Lipa the most followed Dua Lipa just missed out on having the most streamed Barbie song, with her hit single Dance The Night gaining another 10,120,370 streams over the opening weekend. The track's grand total since its release in late May is now up to 127,408,954 streams on Spotify. With nearly 70 million monthly listeners on the streaming service, Dua Lipa is still the most followed artist featured on The Barbie Album.

Billie Eilish's What Was I Made For is just half a million streams behind.

The track, released a week before the film had the fastest pace of daily streams of all known Barbie songs before the premiere, with an average of nearly 2.5 million streams per day. Over the movie's opening weekend, it gained 9,608,211 more streams on Spotify, totalling 30,546,883.

The Spotify data monitored by Music Industry How To suggests that Aqua went from 13.5 million listeners at the beginning of the month to 25.2 million in just three weeks. Nearly two million of them started listening to Aqua between 21 July and 23 July. This makes the band the music act with the most new listeners on the streaming platform over the opening weekend of the Barbie movie. The original Barbie Girl by Aqua, released in 1997, gained an extra 3.5 million streams on Spotify over three days since the film premiered. Spotify users streamed Barbie Girl 13 million more times since the beginning of July.

Barbie gives Billie Eilish a boost With an active following of 56.4 million before releasing her latest Barbie-themed single, Billie Eilish gained an extra 3.2 million monthly listeners since What Was I Made For came out. Over one million of them started listening to her on Spotify in the movie's opening weekend.

Ryan Gosling in Barbie. Image by Warner Bros Ryan Gosling, whose Spotify music includes several soundtracks from La La Land, had 1.4 million monthly listeners before Barbie, the movie, premiered, where he plays Ken. He gained 941,474 new listeners ever since in just three days, beating other established artists like Nicki Minaj, Lizzo and Dua Lipa. Ryan Gosling has two tracks on The Barbie Album: I'm Just Ken and Push.

Big-ticket artists have contributed to promoting Greta Gerwig's Barbie movie, a spokesperson for Music Industry How To commented

In the lead-up to the movie's box office release, we noticed the hype these artists created by gradually releasing Barbie-themed songs. We had another epic disco track from Dua Lipa in late May, an exciting remix of Aqua's classic by Nicki Minaj in late June, and then a gorgeous ballad from Billie Eilish in mid-July. It was a beautifully orchestrated campaign for the movie to get pop music aerophiles excited about Barbie.

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