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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello everyone,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to Too Much Information, the show that brings

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Speaker 1: you the secret history and little known facts behind your

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Speaker 1: favorite music, movies, TV shows, and more. We are your

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Speaker 1: anatomically incorrect dolls of details, your Danish pop machines at Minutia.

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Speaker 1: You're Barbie Boys a bizarre trivia. Yes, there is truly

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Speaker 1: nothing beyond our ken See what I did there? Shut

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Speaker 1: the fuck up? My name? God, Oh my god, Oh,

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Speaker 1: You've made me so angry.

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Speaker 2: Gotta hate this song, Gotta hate everything that this song represents.

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Speaker 1: Continue, what's your name? Oh? I'm Alex Heigel? Sorry, and today, folks,

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Speaker 1: the time has come. We knew it had to happen

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Speaker 1: at some point this summer. Thanks for Greta Gerwig's film,

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Speaker 1: we cannot avoid the Barbie buzz any longer, try as

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Speaker 1: though Heigel might. We are taking a look at a

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Speaker 1: song that, to my surprise, isn't actually in the movie,

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Speaker 1: which we'll get to over the course of this episode,

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Speaker 1: but it's gotten swept along in the great pink tsunami

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Speaker 1: of media hype. We are talking about Barbie Girl by Aqua,

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Speaker 1: one of the most distinctive, memorable songs of the nineties.

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Speaker 1: I don't know how to phrase it. I'll be honest.

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Speaker 1: Maybe this is just my own bias, but I am

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Speaker 1: hard pressed to name a song that did so well

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Speaker 1: commercially that is so undeniably annoying. Does anyone genuinely like

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Speaker 1: this song? I tweeted us using the hashtag Barbie Blitz don't.

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Speaker 1: I don't think so. I mean, just to me, it's

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Speaker 1: what's a better hashtag? I can't think of one. No,

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Speaker 1: that's good. It's good because I was trying to think

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Speaker 1: of a weird Nazi thing. Yeah, no, I know, the

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Speaker 1: Blitz was as close as I was willing to get. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean to me, Barbie Girls firmly in the novelty

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Speaker 1: camp alongside Chipmunk songs in the Monster mash. Even during

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Speaker 1: my years as a wedding DJ, I would rarely or

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Speaker 1: ever turn to this song. But I feel like it's

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Speaker 1: unique in that it's a song that almost everybody seems

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Speaker 1: to agree is bad. Or put another way, I think

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Speaker 1: very few people listen to it for pleasure, Yet people

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Speaker 1: still seem to have a tremendous amount of affection for

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Speaker 1: it and for my particular mid millennial age group which

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Speaker 1: notice how I'm very tactfully avoiding saying middle age. It

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Speaker 1: evokes an innocent, relatively care free time, but it was

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Speaker 1: also a simpler time in the world, this pre nine

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Speaker 1: to eleven, pre social media, pre pseudo civil war that

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Speaker 1: we're living through right now. So maybe people have good

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Speaker 1: feelings for it just for the time that it came

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Speaker 1: out in nineteen ninety seven. Heigel, I cannot imagine you

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Speaker 1: have anything nice to say about this song, But because

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Speaker 1: I'm a glutton for punishment, I'll ask anyway, what do

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Speaker 1: you think of Barbie Girl?

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Speaker 2: Oh my god, what a tremendous piece of sh my god.

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Speaker 2: You know, I don't advocate for international nuclear war much,

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Speaker 2: but we should bomb Deadmark for thea on the anniversary

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Speaker 2: of Oppenheimer whatever they did not put them.

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Speaker 1: Oh my god.

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Speaker 2: I hadn't listened to this song for so long, and

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Speaker 2: then I finally heard it today. Because you maybe do

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Speaker 2: this and it is as bad as I remembered it.

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Speaker 1: That's impressive to me.

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Speaker 2: There's things that I like about eurodance. There's things that

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Speaker 2: I like about dance music. I like a lot of

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Speaker 2: like Detroit techno. I like a lot of stuff that's

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Speaker 2: like abrasive and unpleasant Baltimore club music.

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Speaker 1: Stuff that's like.

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Speaker 2: Charitably described as difficult for the ears.

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Speaker 1: This though, holy sh okay. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, man,

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Speaker 1: I detest europop.

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Speaker 2: I just don't. I don't get it.

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Speaker 1: That actually surprises me. I could see you appreciating the

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Speaker 1: song craft.

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Speaker 2: No, I like their I like the weird period of

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Speaker 2: euro disco where they were all into really being.

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Speaker 1: Evil Italo disco. Yeah exactly, yeah, yeah, yes, yeah, precisely.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, just drum machines and echo and like minor key

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Speaker 2: synths and Italian uh translated vocals that don't make any sense.

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Speaker 1: I do love that, yeah, which is also what I

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Speaker 1: like about europop in general.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but when you make it, it's something as lame

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Speaker 2: and uh triumphant as Barbie, Like, you know, here's my thing.

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Speaker 2: Why do you need to celebrate Barbie. It's like making

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Speaker 2: a pro Coca Cola song.

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Speaker 1: It's a satire. It's not.

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Speaker 2: I guarantee you the message was lost, and I speak

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Speaker 2: as one of the receivers.

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Speaker 1: I guarantee you that message was lost on people.

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Speaker 2: It's not. It didn't translate. People just got the catchiness

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Speaker 2: of it.

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Speaker 1: So I don't know, I prefer the sinisterness of tallow

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Speaker 1: disco and uh yeah, I don't know. I got I

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Speaker 1: this song and I just don't respect.

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Speaker 2: The Danish there. They've they peaked with Hamlet, and.

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Speaker 1: Hamlet didn't write that, you know. Yeah, what are they

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Speaker 1: gonna do to me? Though?

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Speaker 2: Are they gonna cancel me? What are they gonna do?

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Speaker 2: Cut off my supply of tinned fish?

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Speaker 1: Don't they make those cookies in those like blue tins

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Speaker 1: that everybody's grandma would put. Yeah, materials, what do we

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Speaker 1: do with that? Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Exactly what do we do with them? We keep in

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Speaker 2: sewing materials in them? What do I do with this song?

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Speaker 1: You know?

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Speaker 2: American techno like Frankie Knuckles, like the Chicago techno, like

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Speaker 2: all there's this rich history of like American dance music

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Speaker 2: that's really born of disenfranchisement, like of being like, oh, well,

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Speaker 2: we don't have the resources for like a live band,

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Speaker 2: so we're just gonna loop the really danceable part of

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Speaker 2: a drum track, or you know, we're gonna take like

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Speaker 2: we have a drum machine, but it's kind of so

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Speaker 2: we're just gonna loop that and blow it out. And

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Speaker 2: like that's where American techno and American dance music comes

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Speaker 2: from it, and then twenty years later you have this

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Speaker 2: just lame perversion of it. That's just like, yeah, we

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Speaker 2: got those same samples, uh, Barbie. That's our commentary on it, Like,

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Speaker 2: how would you feel if I created Hamlet Girl? How

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Speaker 2: would you feel if I brought in I don't know,

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Speaker 2: Max Martin and I made a novelty hit that was

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Speaker 2: called Hamlet Boy.

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Speaker 1: I think in order for that to work, it would

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Speaker 1: have to be an Americana song produced by like Rick Rubin,

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Speaker 1: and then you would have kind of rules.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so what if we get Rick Rubin and we

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Speaker 2: get who's the preeminent America Jason Jason Isbelle and Jack White? Yes, exactly.

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Speaker 2: Now we're onto a formula. We get Jason isbel we

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Speaker 2: get Jack White, who's a drummer today? Who would really

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Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. Drummers are replaceable, and we'd write a

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Speaker 2: periodic version of Hamlet and that's our novelty hit.

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Speaker 1: And it's called in our own cultural milieu. Yeah, we

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Speaker 1: take their icon and put it in our cultural milieu.

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Speaker 1: That's how you do. It's called Hamlet Boy. All right, great,

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Speaker 1: cancel a show. Jordan take us in well, from Barbie's

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Speaker 1: surprisingly scandalous backstory in the German red light district to

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Speaker 1: Aqua's surprising fixation on Rick Astley, to the lengthy lawsuit

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Speaker 1: between the band and the toy makers behind the doll

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Speaker 1: and Hell, we also got a lengthy segment on pop

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Speaker 1: music used for torture. Appropriately enough, Here's everything you didn't

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Speaker 1: know about Barbie Girl. The story of Barbie Girl begins

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Speaker 1: in the land We're all pop ears originate Scandinavia, or

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Speaker 1: at least Denmark, which I'm told technically counts as Scandinavia,

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Speaker 1: so please hold your angry letters. It begins with a

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Speaker 1: collective of musicians and DJs who originally formed under the

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Speaker 1: name Joyspeed like sounds vaguely obscene. The core of this

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Speaker 1: group were Soren Rasted, which is kind of a very

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Speaker 1: metal name, and Klaus Noreen, which is less metal, who

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Speaker 1: got together in the late eighties when they were pop

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Speaker 1: upsessed teens bonding over de pesche modes simple minds You

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Speaker 1: two and David Bowie, And much like the two lead

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Speaker 1: writers for Abba, Bjorn and Benny, these two future Aquaco

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Speaker 1: founders got their start in music by making the soundtrack

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Speaker 1: for a Danish movie which sounds like a soft core

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Speaker 1: porn nineteen ninety four is Naughty Frieda and the Fearless Spies. Shockingly,

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Speaker 1: that is not a soft core porn. I have checked

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Speaker 1: it out. It's actually a children's movie. In the Venn

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Speaker 1: diagram of softcore porn or children's movies, very small overlap.

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Speaker 1: But I guess they Naughty Frita and the Fearless Spies.

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Speaker 1: How does one get that, Gig Jordan? They want a contest,

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Speaker 1: which I just Scandinavia with their arts grants and their

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Speaker 1: social safety nets and their competitions for scoring children's movies.

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Speaker 1: I guess yeah. I never would have guessed. But around

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Speaker 1: the time when they were working on the soundtrack project,

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Speaker 1: these two Soren and Klaus, began working with a local

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Speaker 1: DJ named Renee Diff It's probably not how you pronounce it,

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Speaker 1: but that's how it's spelled, who was a regular on

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Speaker 1: the Danish club circuit. And this is interesting to me

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Speaker 1: because this guy, Rena Diff, the DJ, told Rolling Stone

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Speaker 1: for their epic oral history on Barbie Girl last year

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two that his all time favorite artist

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Speaker 1: will always be Rick Astley. I really really love Rick Astley,

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Speaker 1: and you know, I've interviewed Rick Astley on several occasions

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Speaker 1: and I can confirm he's quite lovely. I've actually pitched

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Speaker 1: and Never Going to Give You Up episode of TMI

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Speaker 1: to Heigel on many occasions when we first conceived the show,

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Speaker 1: and he steadfastly refused, even after it would have been

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Speaker 1: a great April fools Day thing. We publish it under

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Speaker 1: a different name and people listen. Then all of a

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Speaker 1: sudden we come on talking about Rick Astley and Never

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Speaker 1: Gonna Give You Up. It's a podcast version of Rick Rowling.

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Speaker 1: It's great for years. He's been doing this people. I'm

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Speaker 1: telling you, if enough people comment on the Apple podcast, refuse,

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Speaker 1: if we get five people to ask for Rick Astley,

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Speaker 1: we still won't do it. I'm sorry, I won't do it.

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Speaker 1: So I'm gonna take this little opportunity to shoe horn

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Speaker 1: in some of my favorite little known facts about Rick

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Speaker 1: Astley because I'll never get another chance again. Did you know, Heigel,

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Speaker 1: whose head is literally in his hands right now, that

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Speaker 1: Rick Astley sang backup on can You Feel the Love Tonight?

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Speaker 1: On the Lion King soundtrack? He was uncredited. It's my

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Speaker 1: understanding that Rick Astley went into the studio to visit

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Speaker 1: his friend Elton John, and Elton invited him to sing

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Speaker 1: on it at the last minute, alongside British pop star

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Speaker 1: Gary Barlow of the band Take That I Believe and

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Speaker 1: so Kiki d Elton John's seventies duet partner on the

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Speaker 1: hit Don't Go Break in My Heart. There's an internet

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Speaker 1: rumor here here, this will interest you. There's an internet

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Speaker 1: rumor that Freddy Krueger actor Robert England was also one

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Speaker 1: of the backing singers on Can You Feel the Love Tonight?

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Speaker 1: But he debunked that. Yeah, he debunked that recently. He

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Speaker 1: said some interview it was like the Daily Mail or something.

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Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I did a lot of voice

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Speaker 1: over work. I honestly can't remember all the things I've done,

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Speaker 1: but I'm pretty sure I didn't do that.

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Speaker 2: That'd be amazing if they called him in. If they

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Speaker 2: called him and they were like, do the Freddy voice

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Speaker 2: and he's like, don't.

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Speaker 1: Go break in my heart to night, bitch. I think

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Speaker 1: In the same interview, like the headline of it was

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Speaker 1: something like I look in the mirror and I scare

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Speaker 1: myself or something like bitch. Yeah, he's, he's, He's.

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Speaker 2: The eighties, Freddy Renn is famous for introducing bitch into

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Speaker 2: the slasher movie parlance.

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Speaker 1: I didn't do that.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it starts with it. It starts within Dream Warriors.

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Speaker 2: I think the third installment. There's a woman who wants

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Speaker 2: to become an actress and Freddy comes out of a

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Speaker 2: TV and grabs her, and he shoves her into the

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Speaker 2: TV's head.

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Speaker 1: And he goes, Welcome to prime Time.

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Speaker 2: Bitch, and that began the grand tradition of Freddy calling

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Speaker 2: people bitch.

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Speaker 1: So, Aaron Paul, I'm breaking bad. Probably owes some residuals.

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Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, Yeah exactly, and so yeah, you would have

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Speaker 2: a can you feel the love to night? Bitch?

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Speaker 1: Well back to Rick Astley before we returned to Barbie Girl.

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Speaker 1: Another fun fact about Rick Astley that I really love

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Speaker 1: in a welcome return to our It belongs in a

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Speaker 1: museum segment. Rick has revealed that his iconic trench coat

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Speaker 1: from the Never Gonna Give You Up video was swiped,

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Speaker 1: literally taken off his back by a bunch of teens

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Speaker 1: as he was performing at an outdoor gig in Northern

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Speaker 1: Ireland in the late eighties. So somewhere out there is

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Speaker 1: a vital piece of terrible music history which brings us

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Speaker 1: back to Barbie Girl. That's why I gotta love the

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Speaker 1: Irish Man figure this. They don't care who you are,

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Speaker 1: off your back and the apparently mid song he was

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Speaker 1: doing like some kind of BBC recording.

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Speaker 2: Did you ever see The Commitments? No, oh, man, dude,

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Speaker 2: you would love The Commitments. That movie's great.

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Speaker 1: It's about a bunch of dubliners who form a soul band.

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Speaker 1: It's a great movie.

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Speaker 2: You would love it because they do like they they're doing,

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Speaker 2: like motown covers and stuff.

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Speaker 1: It's a great film. Commitments command check out. I gotta

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Speaker 1: see that. That sounds incredible. I love how much people

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Speaker 1: in the United Kingdom know their soul so much. Americans

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Speaker 1: like Northern Soul, that whole movement. Yeah, so fascinating to me,

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Speaker 1: and like the whole second career that those people have.

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Speaker 1: What is it?

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Speaker 2: I think I saw Eric Burton at one point say

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Speaker 2: something that was incredibly condescending but also kind of true,

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Speaker 2: which was that the British rescued black American music from

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Speaker 2: the dust spin of American history, which is not true

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Speaker 2: when you actually look at the record sales of like

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Speaker 2: soul and blues records and what they call race records

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Speaker 2: in the States. But as far as pop music like it,

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Speaker 2: he is actually kind of true like they did.

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Speaker 1: The British loved soul and blues in a way that

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Speaker 1: American white people didn't. And that's kind of how the

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Speaker 1: quiet part loud about that is that that's how you

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Speaker 1: kind of get the latter half of twentieth century American

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Speaker 1: pop music is British people who loved black American music.

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Speaker 1: Really fascinating to me and also really kind of grim. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's about to get even grimmer because we're going back

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Speaker 1: to the europop of Barbie Girl, because we're talking about

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Speaker 1: the Danish. Yes, this future aqua DJ Renee Diff. He

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Speaker 1: made something of a name for himself in Denmark by

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Speaker 1: rapping during his DJ seys, and you know, I can't

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Speaker 1: conzure up what Danish rapping sounds like. I'm sure it's fantastic.

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Speaker 1: This fall helped this guy get a job on a

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Speaker 1: This is great help us DJ get a job and

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Speaker 1: a Norway to Denmark ferry. They had a DJ hired

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Speaker 1: to play on the Norway to Denmark Ferry, which fulfills

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Speaker 1: our large boat quotient. For this episode, which is wonderful.

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Speaker 1: We love that. We do love that for you for me.

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Speaker 1: While aboard this fairy, Renee diffed. The DJ was in

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Speaker 1: the audience while a shipboard game was being played, kind

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Speaker 1: of like Wheel of Fortune, And while he was in

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Speaker 1: the audience, he was struck by the Vana White style

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Speaker 1: hostess of this game. And her name was Lenae Nystrom,

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Speaker 1: better known to us for our purposes as the future

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Speaker 1: lead singer of Barbie Girl. And according to Renee, Renee

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Speaker 1: sent several months quote flirting my pants off, and they

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Speaker 1: dated for a few years before they ultimately split, and

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Speaker 1: then she would go on and date fell little Aqua

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Speaker 1: member sore and rasted so off the bat you get

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Speaker 1: a kind of a Fleetwood max situation, which would have

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Speaker 1: no apparent impact on Aqua's artistic output. But I just

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Speaker 1: think it's I just think it's worth noting you go

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Speaker 1: to do the flight of the concourse impression.

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Speaker 2: Oh Fleetwood MA made some of the best albums in

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Speaker 2: the seventies.

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Speaker 1: Realms. No it's not true, nicely done.

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Speaker 2: No, no Danish person who's ever spent any amount of

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Speaker 2: time flirting their pants off.

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Speaker 1: I feel like they probably have a lot of sex

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Speaker 1: in Denmark. Well, you know, I'm not. I don't have

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Speaker 1: firm stances on many things. Well, maybe to keep warm

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Speaker 1: the name one Danish person with sexual magnetism. Name one

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Speaker 1: Danish person the villain from Casino Royale Mas. What's his name?

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Speaker 1: Max Migelson from It's a great question. I I don't

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Speaker 1: know a famous I think he might be Daish. Great, Wow, tremendous.

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Speaker 1: He's a great actor. I love he's a great actors

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Speaker 1: Blood on command.

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Speaker 2: At Dude, have you ever seen Another Round? He's tremendous

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Speaker 2: in that movie. He was a professional dancer before becoming

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Speaker 2: an actor. He does like a full dance routine at

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Speaker 2: the end of that movie. That's incredible. He was also

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Speaker 2: he's also Hannibal. He's like the NBC show Hannibal is incredible.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, you love that show. I love Hannibal.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Brian Fuller anyway, Yeah, but I can't take them

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Speaker 2: seriously sexually. Uh.

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Speaker 1: That surprises me. They're very good looking.

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Speaker 2: They are good looking, but they seem like like large

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Speaker 2: statues that you'd approach like there's no art of seduction involved,

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Speaker 2: Like you just kind of.

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Speaker 1: Like there's a forum you fill out a part of

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Speaker 1: the social social service.

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Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, some and very formally meets you in a

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Speaker 2: lobby and you kind of fill out several forms in

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Speaker 2: triplic kit and then you use some hand sanitizer yep.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh. Anyway, so you have Renee the DJ, working

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Speaker 1: with Soren and Klaus, these two film soundtrack guys. Renee

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Speaker 1: brings his new girlfriend linee I'm gonna have a really

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Speaker 1: hard time keeping those tea names apart, and together they

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Speaker 1: form a foursome that they call joy Speed, and they

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Speaker 1: were different in that they were a completely self contained group.

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Speaker 1: Klaus and Soren would do the production for the group

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Speaker 1: and Renee diff would do the rapping and Renee would

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Speaker 1: perform the main vocals. And in ninety ninety five they

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Speaker 1: released their debut single, Itsy Bitsy Spider, which was a

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Speaker 1: minor hit in Sweden but not big enough, and they

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Speaker 1: were dropped by their label and management, so that led

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Speaker 1: them to start all over and change their name to Aqua,

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Speaker 1: choosing the name from a poster scene in their dressing room,

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Speaker 1: and the new songs were recorded with the very techno

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Speaker 1: friendly instrument known as the Roland JV two eight zero,

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Speaker 1: which synthesized oganic instruments, and I helped give their music

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Speaker 1: a new sound, and this eventually earned them a record

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Speaker 1: deal with Universal Music Denmark. All of which leads us,

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Speaker 1: of course, to really the only reason you want to

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Speaker 1: hear about Aqua if you live in North America. Barbie Girl.

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Speaker 3: We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be

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Speaker 3: right back with more too much information in just a moment,

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Speaker 3: tell us about how they wrote Barbie Girl.

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Speaker 2: The idea for Barbie Girl came after the band tended

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Speaker 2: an art exhibit on kitsch culture, which tracks speaking to

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Speaker 2: Rolling Stone for the oral history the magazine did it

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Speaker 2: the song, Soren said, I went to an art exhibition

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Speaker 2: at a store in Copenhagen. They'd taken a bunch of

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Speaker 2: Barbie dolls and we had a planet out of them.

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Speaker 2: It looked like a big round ball. It made me

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Speaker 2: think of life in plastic. It's fantastastic. End quotes, begin quotes.

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Speaker 2: I thought that was a great line. Then I wrote,

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Speaker 2: come on, Barbie, let's go party.

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Speaker 1: End quote. It's not bridge over troubled water, but you

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Speaker 1: know it'll do serve the Americans their slop anyway, Barbie.

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Speaker 2: We can't repeat that word without paying royalties. To Mattel,

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Speaker 2: She's a whole episode in and of herself, but we

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Speaker 2: have to do a quick sidebar She was produced by

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Speaker 2: Mattel Toy Manufacturers, co founded nineteen forty five by Ruth

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Speaker 2: Handler and her husband Elliott, along with a family friend.

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Speaker 1: According to p.

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Speaker 2: R Approved aka hindly sanitized corporate legend, Ruth Handler came

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Speaker 2: up with the idea for the Barbie doll after watching

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Speaker 2: her daughter Barbara, cut paper dolls out of paper magazines

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Speaker 2: and carefully choose clothing and accessories for them.

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Speaker 1: Do you buy that? No good?

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Speaker 2: All the other dolls in the market at the time

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Speaker 2: were baby dolls, but Ruth realized that there was potential

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Speaker 2: in a doll with adult features that would allow children

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Speaker 2: to act out their dreams, and Ruth Handler felt like

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Speaker 2: the only thing that these baby dolls prepared kids to

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Speaker 2: be was a caregiver or mother. Barbie supposedly was created

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Speaker 2: as a way to teach girls about the different careers

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Speaker 2: they could have. Named after Ruth and Elliott's own daughter,

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Speaker 2: Barbie debuted at the New York Toy Fair in March

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Speaker 2: nineteen fifty nine and quickly caught on selling over three

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Speaker 2: hundred and fifty one thousand dollars that year. At three

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Speaker 2: dollars a pop. Today, Barbie is the best selling toy

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Speaker 2: in the world. More than one billion dolls have been

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Speaker 2: sold since nineteen fifty nine in one hundred and fifty

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Speaker 2: different countries. Barbie has obviously made with her fair share

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Speaker 2: of criticism over the years, especially as far as body

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Speaker 2: positive it is be concerned. She's faced scorn over her

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Speaker 2: unrealistic proportions. It has been said that if Barbie were

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Speaker 2: a real human, she would be forced to stand on

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Speaker 2: all fours and.

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Speaker 1: Wouldn't be able to lift her head well. All four

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Speaker 1: members of the Danish garbage collective known as Opera wrote

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Speaker 1: Barbie Girl together, presumably on break from brainstorming different ways

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Speaker 1: to make Hamlet relevant in the twenty first century. Soren

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Speaker 1: and Klow's produced it with their friends Johnny jam and Delgado,

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Speaker 1: both of which sound like parody characters if SNL were

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Speaker 1: dedicating an episode to europop Roland JV twenty eighty. Synth,

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Speaker 1: the instrument that figures so highly in the distinctive sound

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Speaker 1: of the song, helped make Barbie Girls so memorable. Interestingly,

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Speaker 1: for a pop song, Barbie Girl contains a lot of

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Speaker 1: minor keys.

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Speaker 2: The minor chords in this song were a last minute change,

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Speaker 2: As Soren told Rolling Stone, it was in major chords

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Speaker 2: at first. He really wanted to change it to minor chords,

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Speaker 2: and we started on a minor chord instead. I don't

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Speaker 2: mean it to be too technical, but the change means

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Speaker 2: a lot. Another distinctive element of the song is the

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Speaker 2: high pitch of the song, which Lenne had hit for real.

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Speaker 2: This was before auto tune had caught on or was

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Speaker 2: commercially reliable, so she just had to bang it out

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Speaker 2: at that irl high tone, and reportedly she was not

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Speaker 2: happy about this, thinking she sounded ridiculous. She told Rolling Stone,

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Speaker 2: I don't know how many headsets I smashed. I was

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Speaker 2: furious for months, and eventually she warmed to the great

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Speaker 2: of choice. It made the whole track magical, but it

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Speaker 2: took me a long time to admit it. Barbie Girl

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Speaker 2: was the third track on Aqua's debut album, Aquarium, released

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Speaker 2: in April nineteen ninety seven. It was their first single

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Speaker 2: released in the US. From the jump, the band knew

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Speaker 2: they had something special in their hands, but the band

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00:24:05,400 --> 00:24:08,920
Speaker 2: had no idea how big it would be. Lene told

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Speaker 2: Variety in twenty twenty two. Something magical happened when Barbie

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Speaker 2: Girl came out. The whole world exploded overnight. Our label

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Speaker 2: sent it to Z one hundred New York and the

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Speaker 2: phones just lit up. This is where we smash. Cut

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Speaker 2: to the cigar chomping executive, a beloved figure in TMI

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Speaker 2: lord going get me.

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Speaker 4: The Danish Barbie Girl. People, Is it actually Barbie? Is

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Speaker 4: it actually Ken?

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Speaker 1: I don't give a shit.

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Speaker 4: Get him into the Z one hundred studios. Have him

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Speaker 4: talk to Charlemagne the Kid, have him talk to the

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Speaker 4: Rizza and swap production techniques on the Roland drum machine.

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Speaker 2: Barbie Girl sold over one point four million cops in

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Speaker 2: the US and topped the UK charts for a month.

430
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:08,320
Speaker 2: Became England's second best seller of the year, behind only

431
00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:10,399
Speaker 2: Kandle in the Wind.

432
00:25:10,280 --> 00:25:13,399
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety seven. That's right. It took the death of

433
00:25:13,480 --> 00:25:25,520
Speaker 1: a royal to much like Hamlet. Whooa great Wark, Jordan.

434
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:31,719
Speaker 2: You really earned your miniscal pachack with that one. That's right, folks.

435
00:25:31,720 --> 00:25:35,440
Speaker 2: Barbiego came in second to the death of Princess Diana.

436
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:37,920
Speaker 1: That's the worst thing to happen that year.

437
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:44,320
Speaker 2: Barbaregol peaked at number seven in the US point of

438
00:25:44,359 --> 00:25:49,800
Speaker 2: Pride to Aqua. As Lene noted to Rolling Stone, most

439
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:53,480
Speaker 2: of the Scandinavian groups that broke in America were from Sweden,

440
00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:58,960
Speaker 2: though Aha were from Norova, not many came from Denmark.

441
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 2: As you may notice, I'm doing a caricatured accent to

442
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:09,000
Speaker 2: make fun of them. A reviewer from People magazine at

443
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:12,479
Speaker 2: the time called it the year's best novelty record, a

444
00:26:12,560 --> 00:26:16,639
Speaker 2: cartoonish anthem you'll need surgery to remove from your head.

445
00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:20,160
Speaker 2: The song was certainly helped by the influx of teen

446
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:23,119
Speaker 2: centric bubblegum pop that had begun to return to the charts,

447
00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:26,480
Speaker 2: and the former Backstreet Boys and Sink, the Spice Girls

448
00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:31,200
Speaker 2: and shortly afterward Britney Spears, But there was also a downside.

449
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:35,280
Speaker 1: That's right, because despite its success, people really.

450
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:40,760
Speaker 2: Really, really, really really hated this song.

451
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 1: That's right, Jordan. This brings us to a new feature

452
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:47,560
Speaker 1: on TMI that I hope will be a recurring segment,

453
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:51,199
Speaker 1: musical torture sidebar Yeah, it was headed to such a

454
00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:54,400
Speaker 1: degree that I mistakenly believed that Barber Girl was blasted

455
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:58,960
Speaker 1: during hostage situations as a form of psychological combat. I

456
00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 1: was wrong, but my research uncovered some interesting, slash horrifying

457
00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 1: things about this phenomenon that I'd like to share with you.

458
00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 2: Now, was that not true? Where did that come from?

459
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:08,800
Speaker 2: Because I remember, I.

460
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:10,159
Speaker 1: Just it just seems like the kind of song that

461
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:14,240
Speaker 1: would have been, But to my knowledge, it wasn't. But

462
00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 1: there is a fairly long list of songs that have

463
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 1: been blurred to torture people. The US has a long,

464
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:25,160
Speaker 1: not especially proud history of musical torture. In December nineteen

465
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:28,960
Speaker 1: eighty nine, when the United States invaded Panama, American soldiers

466
00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 1: tried to drive to pose dictator Manuel Noriega, who is

467
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 1: an avowed opera fan, out of his hiding place and

468
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:39,159
Speaker 1: another embassy by blasting, among other things, Van Halen's Panama

469
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:43,399
Speaker 1: Pretty Good there, as well as tracks by Styx, Judas Priest,

470
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:48,640
Speaker 1: Black Sabbath, Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA, and reportedly

471
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:52,320
Speaker 1: just full episodes of the Howard Stern Show. So I

472
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:57,080
Speaker 1: don't really get the plug was pulled on this psychological

473
00:27:57,119 --> 00:28:03,600
Speaker 1: warfare with music after the Vatican complain. And then of

474
00:28:03,640 --> 00:28:05,639
Speaker 1: course we got to talk about the nineteen ninety three

475
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:09,960
Speaker 1: Waco standoff, when the ATF blasted songs that included Nancy Sinatras,

476
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:13,560
Speaker 1: these boots are made for walking, Alice Cooper tracks and

477
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:17,400
Speaker 1: Christmas albums by Andy Williams and Mitch Miller, and also

478
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:22,119
Speaker 1: Buddhist chance. This became a fairly famous incident. The New

479
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:24,640
Speaker 1: York Times wrote about in an article with the very

480
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:27,280
Speaker 1: memorable headline has got a good beat and you can

481
00:28:27,320 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 1: surrender to it. I swear this must have been while

482
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 1: the stand off was still occurring, because it was written

483
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:38,680
Speaker 1: in a very flippant, lighthearted way, which seems to suggest

484
00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 1: that nobody had died. So it was pretty jarring to

485
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:44,240
Speaker 1: read that article. Now, was this a sub partaining too?

486
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:49,680
Speaker 1: But they used believe that makes sense? I'm sure, Yeah,

487
00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 1: that sounds familiar. And yeah, the Waco thing was I

488
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:55,080
Speaker 1: think the first time when the whole like we're gonna

489
00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 1: play music to somebody day and night at excruciating volumes,

490
00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:00,120
Speaker 1: over and over and over again. Was kind of the

491
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 1: first time that that entered the popular consciousness as far

492
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 1: as I'm aware. But things really got ramped up during

493
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:10,760
Speaker 1: the War on Terror in the early aughts. A BBC

494
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:14,000
Speaker 1: News report claimed that Enter Sandman by the American heavy

495
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:17,920
Speaker 1: metal bands Metallica was used for sleep deprivation and to

496
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:22,240
Speaker 1: culturally offend Iraqi po W's. I've also read that Marilyn

497
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 1: Manson's The Beautiful People and Nine Inch Nails March of

498
00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:27,760
Speaker 1: the Pigs were also used, both of which were particularly

499
00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 1: effective on those who lived in rural Afghanistan and had

500
00:29:31,400 --> 00:29:33,720
Speaker 1: never been exposed to Western music. That's a hell of

501
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 1: an introduction.

502
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 2: My favorite quote about the time is that Lars Auric

503
00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:38,840
Speaker 2: was supposedly quoted when they asked him about like what

504
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 2: do you how do you feel about Metallica drummer lawyers

505
00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:43,840
Speaker 2: are reck They asked the me, like, how do you

506
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 2: feel about Metallica music being used to torture people? And

507
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:48,400
Speaker 2: he was like, I don't know. I don't have control

508
00:29:48,440 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 2: over what they play. Like, what do you want me

509
00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:52,680
Speaker 2: to do? Ask them to play venom?

510
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:55,920
Speaker 1: Yeah. There's a quote from uh from James Headfield that

511
00:29:55,960 --> 00:29:59,520
Speaker 1: we get to in a minute. He was similarly nonplussed.

512
00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:04,000
Speaker 1: There's a quote fro an American sergeant speaking of Newsweek saying,

513
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:08,920
Speaker 1: these people, ooh, haven't heard heavy metal. They can't take it.

514
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:11,360
Speaker 1: If you play it for twenty four hours, your brain

515
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:14,360
Speaker 1: and body functions start to slide. Your train of thought

516
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 1: slows down and your will is broken. That's when we

517
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 1: come in and talk to them. They also blasted Britney

518
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 1: Spears the theme to Sesame Street and also the theme

519
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:27,360
Speaker 1: to Barney and Friends on repeat, which that just sounds sadistic.

520
00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 1: The composer of the Barney theme, Bob Singleton, reportedly quote

521
00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 1: just laughed when he heard of the song's status as

522
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:39,360
Speaker 1: the quote most overused torture song on the CIA's mixtape.

523
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:43,680
Speaker 1: He elaborated, it seems so ludicrous that something totally innocuous

524
00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:46,200
Speaker 1: for children could threaten the mental state of an adult.

525
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 1: I would rate the annoyance factor to be about equal

526
00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: with hearing my neighbor's leaf blower. It can set my

527
00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:53,760
Speaker 1: teeth on edge, but it won't break me down and

528
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:55,880
Speaker 1: make me confess to crimes against humanity.

529
00:30:56,880 --> 00:30:57,120
Speaker 2: Wow.

530
00:30:57,680 --> 00:31:01,600
Speaker 1: Tom Morella, over Rage against the Machine, was less amused

531
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:03,840
Speaker 1: by the news that his music was being used to

532
00:31:03,840 --> 00:31:07,240
Speaker 1: torture human beings. In protest, he would appear on stage

533
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:09,959
Speaker 1: frequently in two thousand and six in Hoods and Orange,

534
00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:14,240
Speaker 1: Guantanamo Jumpsuits, and Trent Reznor was also horrified by this.

535
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:18,160
Speaker 1: He issued a statement on his blog, Remember Blogs, It's

536
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 1: difficult for me to imagine anything more profoundly insulting, demeaning,

537
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:24,720
Speaker 1: and enraging than discovering music you put your heart and

538
00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 1: soul into creating has been used for purposes of torture.

539
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 1: If there are any legal options that can be realistically taken,

540
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 1: they will be aggressively pursued, with any potential monetary gains

541
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:39,280
Speaker 1: donated to human rights charities. As I said earlier, James

542
00:31:39,280 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 1: Hetfield was a little less perturbed. He's very famously pro military,

543
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:46,960
Speaker 1: and in a radio interview in November two thousand and four,

544
00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 1: he said he was quote proud that the military had

545
00:31:49,640 --> 00:31:53,720
Speaker 1: used as music, even though he specified they hadn't asked

546
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 1: his permission or paid him royalties. He added, if the

547
00:31:57,120 --> 00:31:59,600
Speaker 1: Iraqis aren't used to freedom, then I'm glad to be

548
00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:02,640
Speaker 1: part of their exposure. But he added, if I listened

549
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 1: to a death metal band for twelve hours in a row,

550
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:07,960
Speaker 1: I'd go insane too. I'd tell you anything you wanted

551
00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 1: to know. Hilariously. An article in the Guardian reported that

552
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:15,200
Speaker 1: the US military may owe royalty payments to the artists

553
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 1: whose works were being played to torture captives, which irving

554
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:21,640
Speaker 1: azof could get that out of them.

555
00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:25,720
Speaker 2: That's The most metallical thing ever is if Like Metallica

556
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:31,360
Speaker 2: actually sues the US government for unearned royalties because their

557
00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:36,440
Speaker 2: music has been played in interrogation sessens yeh.

558
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 1: God Well. At other times during the War on Terror,

559
00:32:43,240 --> 00:32:46,720
Speaker 1: the US used the real Slim Shady by Eminem You're

560
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:52,400
Speaker 1: God by Decide Decide, Oh my God, what's wrong with you? Decide? Whips? Dude,

561
00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:54,880
Speaker 1: you aren't need to like Florida death Metal? Did you

562
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:57,360
Speaker 1: think I know? You know? I don't know who they are.

563
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:00,760
Speaker 1: They also played the Meo Mix theme on repeat to

564
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:07,000
Speaker 1: torture prisoners. The best or worst part of this was

565
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:10,560
Speaker 1: that the Miamic song was employed immediately after a long

566
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:13,000
Speaker 1: spell of heavy metal in hopes that the shift in

567
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:18,160
Speaker 1: dynamics would destabilize the prisoner. In the case of blasting

568
00:33:18,240 --> 00:33:21,719
Speaker 1: Slim Shady, it would go on sometimes for twenty days

569
00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:25,680
Speaker 1: non stop. Another prisoner reported that We Are the Champions

570
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:29,240
Speaker 1: by Queen was played for thirty hours non stop, which

571
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:33,520
Speaker 1: is at least five hours too many. A man named

572
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:37,120
Speaker 1: Mohammed al Katani, the alleged twentieth hijacker of the nine

573
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 1: to eleven attack, was blasted with Christina Aguilera's Dirty chosen

574
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:45,240
Speaker 1: specifically for its sexual overtones, which the government believed would

575
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 1: make it difficult for him to observe strict Muslim practices.

576
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:52,880
Speaker 1: To this end, female military personnel would supposedly go shirtless

577
00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 1: during interrogations and give forced lap dances to Muslim inmates.

578
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 1: Psychologists have written that this specific musical torture works by

579
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:06,720
Speaker 1: eliminating the prisoner's ability to have a quote safe interior

580
00:34:06,840 --> 00:34:10,600
Speaker 1: space by invading it with the sounds and cultural expressions

581
00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:14,279
Speaker 1: of their captor, thus leaving prisoners nowhere to go to

582
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:18,280
Speaker 1: quote escape the pain. And that's why ultra patriotic music

583
00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:21,640
Speaker 1: like Neil Diamond's America or Don Maclean's American Pie is

584
00:34:21,680 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 1: often used during these torture sets. That's what you did

585
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:28,759
Speaker 1: to me with Hot California and Don Maclean's American Pie.

586
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:35,239
Speaker 1: You got my pie and Margueritaville, and I'm doing it

587
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:37,880
Speaker 1: right now with Barbie curl Ah.

588
00:34:38,160 --> 00:34:40,279
Speaker 2: At least I had to eat burgers while you're doing

589
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:42,680
Speaker 2: it on the microphone.

590
00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:49,080
Speaker 1: Uh. The government also apparently used David Gray's Babylon Prisoners

591
00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 1: due to the biblical connotations of the title. I thought

592
00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:56,480
Speaker 1: that would be offensive to people of the Islamic faith.

593
00:34:57,280 --> 00:35:01,320
Speaker 1: One German musicologist studying the effects of MU torture played

594
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:05,520
Speaker 1: the song once for a former Guantana inmate, who immediately

595
00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:09,320
Speaker 1: burst into uncontrollable sobs. He reportedly had been forced to

596
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:12,520
Speaker 1: listen to the song at volumes so loud he genuinely

597
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:16,960
Speaker 1: feared his head would burst. Other inmates were blasted with

598
00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:22,800
Speaker 1: the Beg's Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. In one truly remarkable quote,

599
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:25,360
Speaker 1: a since released prisoner is on the record saying that

600
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:29,160
Speaker 1: his captors quote cuffed me and put earphones on my head.

601
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:32,560
Speaker 1: They played hip hop and rock music very loud. I

602
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:36,319
Speaker 1: remember they played meat Loaf and Aerosmith over and over.

603
00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:37,839
Speaker 1: I hated that.

604
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:41,880
Speaker 2: This is what Jordan does to me, Literally, what Jordan

605
00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:45,320
Speaker 2: does to me. I want to talk about John Carpenter

606
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:49,279
Speaker 2: movies and late era John Coltrane records, and Jordan is like,

607
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 2: let's do Barbie Girl.

608
00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:55,080
Speaker 1: We're doing well next week? Yeah, we're doing to talk

609
00:35:55,160 --> 00:36:00,200
Speaker 1: about let's do Armory Geddon And you loved Armageddon? Did

610
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:04,719
Speaker 1: you did? I did love? Oh, what's the Arnold? What

611
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:10,400
Speaker 1: we're gonna do Predator? Yeah, a little bit of a

612
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:14,680
Speaker 1: preview for you. TM. I faithful that's gonna be that's

613
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:16,920
Speaker 1: gonna be fun until you pull the rug out from

614
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:19,560
Speaker 1: under me and you're like, surprise, we're doing David Gray's Babylon.

615
00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:24,799
Speaker 1: What's up with David Gray? How's he doing? You know,

616
00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 1: I don't know. I you know, in my mind, I've

617
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:33,239
Speaker 1: replaced his face with Dave Matthews, you know, similar white men.

618
00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:37,600
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yeah, yeah, yeah, and even kind of sounds

619
00:36:37,600 --> 00:36:40,960
Speaker 1: like Dave Matthews. Jordan's psychologically, what does Barbie girl do

620
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:41,440
Speaker 1: to us?

621
00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:42,080
Speaker 2: Take us home?

622
00:36:43,239 --> 00:36:46,319
Speaker 1: He says halfway through the outline, and we have so

623
00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:49,919
Speaker 1: much left to go. Take us home? Jordan. Uh. It's

624
00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:52,800
Speaker 1: worth noting that music doesn't necessarily have to be bad

625
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:56,160
Speaker 1: or even played non stop to be torturous, just at

626
00:36:56,160 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 1: irregular intervals to disrupt regular sleep. One Prisoneric Guantanamo is

627
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:04,320
Speaker 1: quoted as saying, sometimes it would stop at three am

628
00:37:04,480 --> 00:37:07,320
Speaker 1: or so, but your ability to sleep was already disturbed.

629
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:10,360
Speaker 1: You lose the ability to have a routine sleep. The

630
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 1: other thing they did was play the music at various times.

631
00:37:13,280 --> 00:37:15,359
Speaker 1: The random aspect of when it would start or end

632
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:18,799
Speaker 1: was frustrating. It makes you tired, agitated, upset. On top

633
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:20,879
Speaker 1: of all the other situations of not knowing when you're

634
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:23,760
Speaker 1: going to be released, interrogated, or moved to those other cells.

635
00:37:24,160 --> 00:37:28,359
Speaker 1: Many people suffered from various kinds of anxiety attacks. People hyperventilate,

636
00:37:28,520 --> 00:37:31,080
Speaker 1: lose control of their senses, hit their bottle of water

637
00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:34,080
Speaker 1: against the cell against other people, trying to scrape their

638
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:37,680
Speaker 1: hands against the concertina wire, sometimes breaking down and crying.

639
00:37:38,719 --> 00:37:41,520
Speaker 1: One US Navy veteran who was doing undercover work in

640
00:37:41,520 --> 00:37:44,400
Speaker 1: Iraq did time in an unofficial prison camp and was

641
00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:48,920
Speaker 1: tortured with song. Thankfully, he'd been specifically trained for this

642
00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:53,280
Speaker 1: eventuality and put his background to good use. He started

643
00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:55,960
Speaker 1: to talk to himself, telling himself jokes, trying to keep

644
00:37:55,960 --> 00:37:58,880
Speaker 1: a rational train of thought going, believing that if he

645
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:02,200
Speaker 1: let the music complete quote mask his thoughts, he would

646
00:38:02,280 --> 00:38:05,960
Speaker 1: never recover his sanity. He added that the experience quote

647
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:08,480
Speaker 1: sort of removes you from you. You can no longer

648
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:11,239
Speaker 1: formulate your own thoughts when you're in an environment like that,

649
00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:15,360
Speaker 1: and as a result, he emerged damaged, but not broken

650
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:19,960
Speaker 1: in his words. Another released Guantanamo prisoner explained in an interview,

651
00:38:20,239 --> 00:38:22,520
Speaker 1: I can bear being beaten up. It's not a problem

652
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:24,279
Speaker 1: once you've accept that you're going to go into the

653
00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:26,960
Speaker 1: interrogation room and be beaten up. It's fine, you can

654
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:31,280
Speaker 1: prepare yourself mentally, but when you're being psychologically tortured, you can't.

655
00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:35,000
Speaker 1: It makes you feel like you're going mad. Another prisoner

656
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:37,760
Speaker 1: said that this psychological torture was worse than the physical

657
00:38:37,800 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 1: torture he received, which included having his penis regularly cut

658
00:38:41,719 --> 00:38:45,360
Speaker 1: with razor blades. He said, imagine you're given a choice,

659
00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:50,560
Speaker 1: lose your sight or lose your mind. So that's all horrifying.

660
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:52,839
Speaker 1: But on a slightly lighter note, as we get off

661
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:56,600
Speaker 1: this topic onto as you'll recall Barbie Girl. No, no,

662
00:38:57,480 --> 00:39:01,080
Speaker 1: mmm no, we're getting back to this. How can I

663
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:01,600
Speaker 1: torture you?

664
00:39:03,480 --> 00:39:08,560
Speaker 2: Is it Slayer? Late era John Coltrane? What could I

665
00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:12,279
Speaker 2: do to you? I think because you you're such a

666
00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:17,520
Speaker 2: sweet boy, and you love such You're so pure, you

667
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:21,759
Speaker 2: love pop music, and you love the baroque influence of

668
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:27,000
Speaker 2: pop music, and you love composition. What could I do

669
00:39:27,160 --> 00:39:30,840
Speaker 2: that would really break you? Like free, like a really

670
00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:36,040
Speaker 2: aggressive free jazz, or like really abrasive like Norwegian black metal?

671
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:39,880
Speaker 2: Can I get some Mayhem? Or who's the guy that

672
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:41,360
Speaker 2: murdered his bandmate?

673
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 1: I think that.

674
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 2: Uronymous can I get some really like uh vragvirknez Norwegian

675
00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:54,279
Speaker 2: black metal or or like really heinous free jazz. Yeah,

676
00:39:54,320 --> 00:40:00,000
Speaker 2: like like like like late Coltrane or like Albert Albert Eylor. Yeah, yeah,

677
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:01,480
Speaker 2: what do you what do you got what?

678
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:05,279
Speaker 1: I'm pretty good at disappearing into myself though. Yeah, so

679
00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 1: well you say that now, you say that now? Well

680
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:12,319
Speaker 1: on an hour twenty six? Yeah. Yeah.

681
00:40:12,360 --> 00:40:15,799
Speaker 2: By the way, don't answer any knocks at your door

682
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 2: anytime soon, because I do know where you live, and

683
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:23,359
Speaker 2: you do you have a key? Hey, you have a key? Yeah,

684
00:40:23,440 --> 00:40:27,279
Speaker 2: And this is a project for iHeart. Yeah, they've signed out.

685
00:40:27,320 --> 00:40:31,279
Speaker 2: Your bosses have signed up on this. So you know,

686
00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:36,000
Speaker 2: when you wake up handcuffed to a corpse and Interstellar

687
00:40:36,080 --> 00:40:41,160
Speaker 2: Space by the John Fortring Quartet is playing, know that

688
00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:41,600
Speaker 2: that's me.

689
00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:44,360
Speaker 1: It's cheaper than laying me off.

690
00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:50,319
Speaker 2: The classic New York media answer, I would rather be

691
00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:54,279
Speaker 2: tortured than eventually laid off. All right, where let's take

692
00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:58,280
Speaker 2: this home. You got like seven more pages going, Come on, Jordan,

693
00:40:58,440 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 2: take us home.

694
00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:01,600
Speaker 1: That's going to be my new cue.

695
00:41:01,640 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 2: By the way, when we have like seventeen more pages here, Jordan,

696
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:05,800
Speaker 2: take us home.

697
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:11,960
Speaker 1: Canadian Police reportedly use Nickelback's music to punish and or

698
00:41:12,040 --> 00:41:15,880
Speaker 1: torture DUI suspects. But alas in all of my research,

699
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:19,000
Speaker 1: I have not uncovered Aqua's Barbie Girl being used in

700
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:22,480
Speaker 1: such a way. So now I guess everyone can quit

701
00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:24,319
Speaker 1: their bitching about having to hear the song every now

702
00:41:24,320 --> 00:41:26,600
Speaker 1: and again, because there's a lot worse things that can

703
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:30,000
Speaker 1: be done with music. Poor Lini, the lead singer of Aquas,

704
00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:32,920
Speaker 1: quoted as saying, we weren't prepared for all the negative

705
00:41:32,960 --> 00:41:35,759
Speaker 1: reactions to Barbie Girl. You know in your heart what

706
00:41:35,840 --> 00:41:38,440
Speaker 1: your intentions were, and reading all the negative reviews was

707
00:41:38,480 --> 00:41:41,960
Speaker 1: a bit tough to swallow just the cloying sing song

708
00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:46,240
Speaker 1: nature of the chorus. The song got attention for its

709
00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:49,960
Speaker 1: suggestive lyrics, which many took to be an insult to feminism.

710
00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:54,360
Speaker 1: To wit, you can brush my hair, undress me everywhere.

711
00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:58,520
Speaker 1: I'm a blonde bimbo girl in a fantasy world. Dress

712
00:41:58,600 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 1: me up, make it tight on here, dolly, make me walk,

713
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:05,040
Speaker 1: make me talk, do whatever you please. I can act

714
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:08,400
Speaker 1: like a star. I can beg on my knees, kiss

715
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:11,640
Speaker 1: me here, touch me there, hanky panky, I don't remember that.

716
00:42:12,320 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 1: Come jump in Bimbo friends, let us do it again.

717
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:16,960
Speaker 1: I'm reading this like Gore Vidal.

718
00:42:19,239 --> 00:42:21,520
Speaker 2: If you read, if you're reading like Charlton Heston reading

719
00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:26,520
Speaker 2: the Iced Tea. They like die Die, Die, pig die.

720
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:33,880
Speaker 1: More than ten commandments. Uh. The Ken voice in Barbie

721
00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 1: Girls starts the song by asking if Barbie wants to

722
00:42:36,600 --> 00:42:39,400
Speaker 1: go for a ride? So what is up with that

723
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:42,760
Speaker 1: Ken voice? Why do they say that was the Ken voice?

724
00:42:42,760 --> 00:42:47,839
Speaker 2: That sounds like uh, like like b squad. Tom waits,

725
00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:49,320
Speaker 2: he sounds like a predator.

726
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:51,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's That's been a major complaint against

727
00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:53,920
Speaker 1: the song, is that the Ken voice sounds like a

728
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:57,440
Speaker 1: sexual predator. Yes, that's true. Over the years, many pundits

729
00:42:57,440 --> 00:42:59,800
Speaker 1: and critics have read a great deal into the lyrics

730
00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 1: of this song. Was it a social comment, was it satire?

731
00:43:03,320 --> 00:43:06,640
Speaker 1: Or was it just merely problematic? The band have taken

732
00:43:06,680 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 1: great delight in blanking all journalists who try to hold

733
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:11,480
Speaker 1: their feet to the fire and get an explanation as

734
00:43:11,520 --> 00:43:14,240
Speaker 1: to their meeting behind this song, much like Britney spears

735
00:43:14,280 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 1: Wood and the famous truck Clausroman profile when he's asked

736
00:43:17,560 --> 00:43:20,279
Speaker 1: her about these sexual undertones of Hitney Baby one more

737
00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:24,960
Speaker 1: Time and she just completely blanks him on it sore

738
00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:27,640
Speaker 1: and told Variety in twenty twenty two we have the

739
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:30,080
Speaker 1: line come on, Barbie, let's go party, and thought it

740
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:32,560
Speaker 1: was great. There were a lot of headlines about plastic

741
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:35,520
Speaker 1: surgery at that time which influenced us, but we really

742
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:37,879
Speaker 1: just wanted to make a fun song. We didn't put

743
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:42,400
Speaker 1: much thought into it. The hook just worked really, really well. Whoever,

744
00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:45,120
Speaker 1: he gave what appears to be a totally different explanation

745
00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:48,480
Speaker 1: to Rolling Stone that same year twenty twenty two, Barbara

746
00:43:48,480 --> 00:43:51,799
Speaker 1: Girl was, of course a song about plastic surgeries. Other

747
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:54,200
Speaker 1: parts of the song were just sexual. When we had

748
00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:56,759
Speaker 1: the lawsuit for Mattel, which we'll talk about later, the

749
00:43:56,840 --> 00:43:59,520
Speaker 1: lawyers made us change the story. They said, please don't

750
00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:02,239
Speaker 1: say it's anything sexual. But we were not really trying

751
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:04,080
Speaker 1: to make a statement. We were just trying to write

752
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:07,080
Speaker 1: a fun song. And Lena said something similar to Rolling

753
00:44:07,080 --> 00:44:10,440
Speaker 1: Stone linking it to the era of Baywatch and quote

754
00:44:10,480 --> 00:44:13,960
Speaker 1: taking the piss out of Pamela Anderson. It's tongue in cheek.

755
00:44:14,120 --> 00:44:16,400
Speaker 1: It's pop music. If you want to see the layers

756
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:18,680
Speaker 1: to it, there's all the layers you want. We wanted

757
00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:20,880
Speaker 1: to take the piss out of that kind of perfect girl.

758
00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:23,719
Speaker 1: That was the main thing we discussed. We didn't say

759
00:44:23,719 --> 00:44:25,920
Speaker 1: it very often, but that was the main thing behind

760
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:30,360
Speaker 1: the song. Choosing Barbie is so half fast, man, I mean, like,

761
00:44:31,680 --> 00:44:34,440
Speaker 1: oh my god, there's so many other icons of American culture.

762
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:38,560
Speaker 1: You could choose Juice what you just like choosing John Wayne?

763
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:43,319
Speaker 1: You know, pick a better topic, pick like what would

764
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:48,680
Speaker 1: you have done? Chuck Berry? That guy liked to watch

765
00:44:48,719 --> 00:44:57,280
Speaker 1: people piss. James Brown, you know, Elvis Elvis is Wow?

766
00:44:57,400 --> 00:45:00,600
Speaker 2: I was there an Elvis boy. El This is a

767
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:03,480
Speaker 2: ripe for parody from the European perspective.

768
00:45:05,520 --> 00:45:07,399
Speaker 1: I kind of feel like that's an easy one. That's

769
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:09,359
Speaker 1: it what it is, it is, but it is.

770
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 2: But we but we got Barbie Girl, and we got

771
00:45:11,680 --> 00:45:14,719
Speaker 2: the most half assed Barbie Girl. Come on, Barbie, let's

772
00:45:14,760 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 2: go party. That means nothing to me. Come on, Barbie,

773
00:45:19,680 --> 00:45:24,360
Speaker 2: let's extend our credit. Come on, Barbie, Let's go into

774
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:28,080
Speaker 2: debt to achieve the lifestyle that our parents told us

775
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:32,400
Speaker 2: we could afford. Come on, Barbie, let's go to college,

776
00:45:32,640 --> 00:45:35,440
Speaker 2: liberal arts. Let's get a liberal arts degree because our

777
00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:38,360
Speaker 2: parents told us that that would be the path to success.

778
00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:44,960
Speaker 2: Come on, Barbie Capitalism is a failed experiment. All of

779
00:45:45,000 --> 00:45:48,520
Speaker 2: these would have been really valid options for a pop song,

780
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:49,799
Speaker 2: and instead they.

781
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:54,640
Speaker 1: Come on Barbie, Let's sign up for Twitter Blue. Yes,

782
00:45:55,440 --> 00:46:01,520
Speaker 1: these are all valid options, Jordan, take us home. One

783
00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:04,160
Speaker 1: of the people who hated Barbie Girl was the guy

784
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 1: who ultimately directed the cartoonish fantasy video for the track,

785
00:46:08,640 --> 00:46:13,279
Speaker 1: Peter Pederson. I can't say, I need to check and

786
00:46:13,320 --> 00:46:17,880
Speaker 1: make sure that I did. That's not a type. That

787
00:46:18,200 --> 00:46:22,319
Speaker 1: can't be his name, Peter Peterson is his name. Yes,

788
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:25,880
Speaker 1: as Peter told Rolling Stone for their o history that

789
00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:28,319
Speaker 1: we keep citing, I was just starting out as a

790
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 1: director and it was hard. The night before I got

791
00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:32,759
Speaker 1: the request to do the Barbie Girl video, I was

792
00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:36,640
Speaker 1: doing some grainy black and white art stuff in while

793
00:46:36,640 --> 00:46:39,120
Speaker 1: we were setting up, Barbie Girl came on the radio.

794
00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:43,040
Speaker 1: I remember saying, angrily, what the hell is this? The

795
00:46:43,120 --> 00:46:45,120
Speaker 1: next day I got a call asking if I wanted

796
00:46:45,160 --> 00:46:47,799
Speaker 1: to do a video for it. I went cheerfully yes,

797
00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:51,799
Speaker 1: of course. To prep he watched a bunch of old

798
00:46:51,800 --> 00:46:55,040
Speaker 1: Hannah Barbara cartoons like The Flintstones and Scooby Doo to

799
00:46:55,080 --> 00:46:59,200
Speaker 1: capture that bright, technicolor aesthetic which would mimic the cartoonish

800
00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:02,319
Speaker 1: feel of the song, and Peterson also took notes on

801
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:06,080
Speaker 1: Spike Jones's video for Sabotage by the Beastie Boys. He said,

802
00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:08,799
Speaker 1: I love those crime movies and exploitation movies that they

803
00:47:08,800 --> 00:47:11,640
Speaker 1: were referencing. It was an inspiration since it had the

804
00:47:11,640 --> 00:47:14,680
Speaker 1: Beastie Boys playing characters. That was a good reference for

805
00:47:14,719 --> 00:47:16,719
Speaker 1: me to say, if we can go this way and

806
00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:19,000
Speaker 1: have a kind of irony, we can go a long way.

807
00:47:20,000 --> 00:47:22,239
Speaker 1: He held a brainstorming session with the band where he

808
00:47:22,280 --> 00:47:26,000
Speaker 1: asked all the critical questions what does Barbie do? What

809
00:47:26,080 --> 00:47:28,759
Speaker 1: kind of props does she have? And the answer was,

810
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:32,440
Speaker 1: of course, well she has a house, a car, a horse,

811
00:47:32,800 --> 00:47:37,359
Speaker 1: a hair dryer, a telephone, a dog. And they storyboarded

812
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:40,200
Speaker 1: from there, with the ultimate premise being summed up as

813
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:43,160
Speaker 1: Barbie does a lot of things and it ends in

814
00:47:43,200 --> 00:47:47,600
Speaker 1: a party. That's the log line for the video. The

815
00:47:47,680 --> 00:47:49,880
Speaker 1: video was filmed in just two days in a warehouse

816
00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:53,640
Speaker 1: in Copenhagen. Despite the quick turnaround, there was some drama

817
00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:57,360
Speaker 1: when Linney arrived on the set and discovered that she

818
00:47:57,480 --> 00:48:00,120
Speaker 1: was expected to dye her hair blonde to portray the

819
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:03,560
Speaker 1: Barbie character. She said, I don't get angry very often,

820
00:48:03,640 --> 00:48:06,000
Speaker 1: but you can only stretch me so far. I had

821
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:08,359
Speaker 1: my own kind of opinion about that. I didn't want

822
00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:10,799
Speaker 1: to look like Barbie. That's against the whole point of

823
00:48:10,840 --> 00:48:12,920
Speaker 1: the song. I came into the dressing room and the

824
00:48:12,960 --> 00:48:15,840
Speaker 1: stylists were there, so we had a long, hard argument.

825
00:48:16,200 --> 00:48:19,120
Speaker 1: Universal came in the record company, the director came in,

826
00:48:19,160 --> 00:48:21,799
Speaker 1: and I just stood my ground. So Patterson went back

827
00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:24,480
Speaker 1: to the storyboards and colored all the shots of Lennay's

828
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:27,560
Speaker 1: blond hair black. But he still wanted Barbie and Ken

829
00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:29,759
Speaker 1: to make an appearance, so he called two friends who

830
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:33,080
Speaker 1: he thought looked the part, and according to bands myth

831
00:48:33,520 --> 00:48:37,120
Speaker 1: the Rich Myth of Aqua, the Barbie and Ken actors

832
00:48:37,160 --> 00:48:39,280
Speaker 1: met on the set that day and wound up getting

833
00:48:39,280 --> 00:48:42,799
Speaker 1: married and having kids. Apparently that's not quite the case.

834
00:48:42,840 --> 00:48:44,799
Speaker 1: They actually met while working at a cafe a few

835
00:48:44,840 --> 00:48:46,880
Speaker 1: years earlier. But I still think it's cute that the

836
00:48:47,000 --> 00:48:50,480
Speaker 1: Barbie and Ken characters from the Barbiego video are now married,

837
00:48:50,600 --> 00:48:54,360
Speaker 1: or at least they were. Reflecting Peter Penderson's dim view of

838
00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:56,879
Speaker 1: the song, He also said that he didn't have high

839
00:48:56,920 --> 00:48:59,400
Speaker 1: hopes for the video, and he said he vividly remembered

840
00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:01,840
Speaker 1: the day when one came running into his office shouting

841
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:05,240
Speaker 1: the videos on MTV, and, as he told Rolling Stone,

842
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:09,560
Speaker 1: his response was, really, I didn't understand it at that time,

843
00:49:10,040 --> 00:49:15,960
Speaker 1: and I still don't understand it. As you meditate on that,

844
00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:19,080
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more too much information. After

845
00:49:19,120 --> 00:49:31,560
Speaker 1: these messages, Aqua.

846
00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:36,279
Speaker 2: The band Not the Color, tried to blunt any backlash

847
00:49:36,480 --> 00:49:39,600
Speaker 2: to their song Barbie Girl by including the line in

848
00:49:39,719 --> 00:49:43,200
Speaker 2: their liner in the liner notes, in the liner notes

849
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:46,240
Speaker 2: that said, the song Barbie Girl is a social comment

850
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:49,560
Speaker 2: and was not created or approved by the makers of

851
00:49:50,160 --> 00:49:55,880
Speaker 2: the doll A very you know, derogatory way to so

852
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:58,719
Speaker 2: very dismissive. How do they refer to I'm gonna tell

853
00:49:58,760 --> 00:49:59,080
Speaker 2: that way?

854
00:50:00,280 --> 00:50:03,920
Speaker 1: Uh. This is not enough to soothe the raging tempers

855
00:50:03,960 --> 00:50:07,880
Speaker 1: of Mattel, who launched legal action six months after the

856
00:50:07,880 --> 00:50:09,960
Speaker 1: song's released, kicking off a battle that would drag on

857
00:50:10,120 --> 00:50:12,240
Speaker 1: until two thousand and two, five years after.

858
00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:15,840
Speaker 2: Barbie Girl came out. Funnily enough, Uh, Aqua is not

859
00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:19,480
Speaker 2: even the first entity to be sued over Barbie Uh.

860
00:50:20,160 --> 00:50:24,799
Speaker 1: Todd Haynes, famously the director of I'm Not There, the

861
00:50:24,800 --> 00:50:27,160
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan, I'm Not There, the Bob Dylan film and

862
00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:31,480
Speaker 1: Really Underground Dot, the veloted Underground Dot, Well Velvet Undergrond

863
00:50:31,480 --> 00:50:35,960
Speaker 1: doc and also the voted Underground dramatization uh of a

864
00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:38,600
Speaker 1: gold Mine. Uh yeah yeah.

865
00:50:38,640 --> 00:50:40,440
Speaker 2: He was sued by Mattel for his use of the

866
00:50:40,480 --> 00:50:43,799
Speaker 2: doll the nineteen eighty seven film Superstar The Karen Carpenter Story,

867
00:50:43,840 --> 00:50:47,320
Speaker 2: which re enacted the life and struggles of the titular

868
00:50:47,400 --> 00:50:51,040
Speaker 2: character Karen Carpenter of the Carpenters and her battle with

869
00:50:51,280 --> 00:50:55,279
Speaker 2: anorexia nervosa using you guessed.

870
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:57,000
Speaker 1: It, Barbie dolls.

871
00:50:57,520 --> 00:51:02,880
Speaker 2: So they also soothed the Danish The toy manufacturer Fold

872
00:51:03,000 --> 00:51:08,880
Speaker 2: eleven claims against MCA Records, Aqua's American record label, claiming

873
00:51:08,920 --> 00:51:12,239
Speaker 2: that the song had violated copyrights and trademarks, even in

874
00:51:12,400 --> 00:51:14,520
Speaker 2: bringing on what they referred to in the suit as

875
00:51:14,560 --> 00:51:17,600
Speaker 2: the color quote unquote Barbie pink.

876
00:51:18,360 --> 00:51:20,320
Speaker 1: You're a Laura Haigel. How can you can you copyright

877
00:51:20,360 --> 00:51:25,080
Speaker 1: a color? No? Good? No? Because colors have hex codes.

878
00:51:25,600 --> 00:51:29,239
Speaker 1: You know, there's a whole thing about.

879
00:51:28,200 --> 00:51:31,840
Speaker 2: What do they call Uh, there's like a phrase for

880
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:35,240
Speaker 2: white people online that they use, like a six YT

881
00:51:35,640 --> 00:51:39,200
Speaker 2: or something. It's like the photoshop hex code for like

882
00:51:39,320 --> 00:51:40,920
Speaker 2: absolute white h.

883
00:51:41,520 --> 00:51:45,720
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Yeah anyway. Uh. Mottel filed suit

884
00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:49,560
Speaker 1: against MCA, claiming that the song Barbie Girl had violated

885
00:51:49,600 --> 00:51:52,960
Speaker 1: copyrights and trademarks. They also claimed the song.

886
00:51:53,040 --> 00:51:58,200
Speaker 2: Tarnished Barbie's image by sexualizing her, specifically by referring to

887
00:51:58,239 --> 00:52:02,319
Speaker 2: her as a blonde bimbo. MCA's lawyers, meanwhile, went on

888
00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:08,840
Speaker 2: the offensive bite, basically questioning the dolls character and history,

889
00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:11,879
Speaker 2: at least in terms of as Mattel had provided it.

890
00:52:13,000 --> 00:52:17,920
Speaker 2: In other words, they subjected an inanimate doll to brutal

891
00:52:18,160 --> 00:52:19,279
Speaker 2: character assassination.

892
00:52:20,160 --> 00:52:22,480
Speaker 1: Lawyers. Yeah.

893
00:52:22,920 --> 00:52:25,520
Speaker 2: In the Rolling Stone, Sorry, the MCA lawyer is quoted

894
00:52:25,560 --> 00:52:28,239
Speaker 2: as saying, my view was reinforced when I learned about

895
00:52:28,280 --> 00:52:33,359
Speaker 2: Barbie's background pause through a pool quote. Barbie began her

896
00:52:33,400 --> 00:52:36,760
Speaker 2: life as a German doll known as Lily, and Lily

897
00:52:36,880 --> 00:52:41,279
Speaker 2: was a plaything for adult men. Brackets essentially a three

898
00:52:41,360 --> 00:52:46,719
Speaker 2: D pup. Brackets closed. So her background was not Christine.

899
00:52:47,040 --> 00:52:50,600
Speaker 2: This is all the quote, so continuing quote. It also

900
00:52:50,680 --> 00:52:53,480
Speaker 2: became very clear that Barbie had been represented in books

901
00:52:53,480 --> 00:52:56,720
Speaker 2: and other media, even in recordings priory to Barbie Girl,

902
00:52:57,120 --> 00:53:00,920
Speaker 2: as representing a certain type of person. She became an

903
00:53:01,200 --> 00:53:05,319
Speaker 2: icon standing for a certain type of person. That led

904
00:53:05,360 --> 00:53:08,920
Speaker 2: to the major defenses in the case, which were essentially

905
00:53:09,239 --> 00:53:10,520
Speaker 2: First Amendment.

906
00:53:10,160 --> 00:53:12,200
Speaker 1: Cases end quote.

907
00:53:12,960 --> 00:53:17,320
Speaker 2: MCA responded by filing a defamation counterclaim against them, claiming

908
00:53:17,360 --> 00:53:19,759
Speaker 2: that Mattel's mind was in the gutter and that they

909
00:53:19,760 --> 00:53:23,080
Speaker 2: added their own meetings into the song's lyrics, with their

910
00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:28,400
Speaker 2: lawyer continuing quote, we hired literary experts, record industry experts,

911
00:53:28,800 --> 00:53:31,240
Speaker 2: marketing experts and came up with all sorts of material

912
00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:35,760
Speaker 2: that was more critical of Barbie and a lot more sexual, frankly,

913
00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:37,279
Speaker 2: than Barbie Girl.

914
00:53:38,239 --> 00:53:41,319
Speaker 1: There was no doubt that for many, many years, even

915
00:53:41,400 --> 00:53:44,240
Speaker 1: people who didn't buy Barbie dolls were aware that Barbie

916
00:53:44,280 --> 00:53:47,080
Speaker 1: was either viewed as a feminist or as a bimbo.

917
00:53:47,920 --> 00:53:52,359
Speaker 2: That was an indisputable fact. Also, trademark names have been

918
00:53:53,000 --> 00:53:57,000
Speaker 2: used in songs for many years. Think of Janis Joplin's

919
00:53:57,120 --> 00:54:03,960
Speaker 2: Mercedes Benz, Paul Simon's Codochrome, Bruce Springsteen's Cadillac Ranch. At

920
00:54:03,960 --> 00:54:06,360
Speaker 2: one point, Mattel argued that they could have called the

921
00:54:06,400 --> 00:54:12,160
Speaker 2: song party Girl. However, party Girl obviously does not convey

922
00:54:12,200 --> 00:54:16,600
Speaker 2: the same message as Barbie Girl. The lawsuit dragged on

923
00:54:16,680 --> 00:54:19,479
Speaker 2: for years and ultimately went to the United States Court

924
00:54:19,520 --> 00:54:27,480
Speaker 2: of Appeals COBBA, which Circuit Ninth Ninth Circuit Judge Alek

925
00:54:27,600 --> 00:54:32,520
Speaker 2: Kozinski ruled in favor of MCA, staying staying that the

926
00:54:32,520 --> 00:54:35,840
Speaker 2: song was protected as free speech under the First Amendment,

927
00:54:36,400 --> 00:54:38,879
Speaker 2: basically ruling that it was a parody and therefore didn't

928
00:54:38,960 --> 00:54:41,960
Speaker 2: violate any copyright laws. He also threw out a deformation

929
00:54:42,080 --> 00:54:45,640
Speaker 2: lawsuit Aqua's record company filed against Mattel, ending is ruling

930
00:54:45,640 --> 00:54:46,960
Speaker 2: with a line the.

931
00:54:46,840 --> 00:54:49,440
Speaker 1: Parties are advised to chill.

932
00:54:51,800 --> 00:54:53,480
Speaker 2: I don't have a lot of respect for the US

933
00:54:53,600 --> 00:54:57,760
Speaker 2: judiciary infrastructure, but I do have that line.

934
00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:00,000
Speaker 1: Good for you.

935
00:55:00,600 --> 00:55:02,960
Speaker 2: It's gotta be from the Bay Area. Good for you,

936
00:55:03,080 --> 00:55:05,840
Speaker 2: Judge Kaczinski, the case was dismissed.

937
00:55:06,080 --> 00:55:07,600
Speaker 1: Mattel tried to take it all the way to the

938
00:55:07,600 --> 00:55:10,120
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, but their petition was denied.

939
00:55:10,719 --> 00:55:14,239
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, the band's response to all of this was essentially

940
00:55:15,640 --> 00:55:21,799
Speaker 2: Danish bewilderment the national brand along with tinned Fish and

941
00:55:22,000 --> 00:55:27,040
Speaker 2: melancholy Renee Deef. The DJ told Rolling Stone that his

942
00:55:27,040 --> 00:55:29,920
Speaker 2: first thought was, Wow, the biggest toy company in the

943
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:33,920
Speaker 2: world is going after the little band from Denmark. Accent's

944
00:55:34,040 --> 00:55:39,239
Speaker 2: mine Leney said something similar. I thought it was hilarious.

945
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:42,400
Speaker 2: To be honest, I have to say only in America.

946
00:55:42,920 --> 00:55:46,120
Speaker 2: They didn't sue us. They sued our label. For a

947
00:55:46,160 --> 00:55:49,800
Speaker 2: long time. We couldn't talk about it. If we were interviewed,

948
00:55:49,880 --> 00:55:52,719
Speaker 2: we couldn't speak about it. There were a lot of

949
00:55:52,760 --> 00:55:56,239
Speaker 2: hassles around us. But it was also hilarious, and it

950
00:55:56,280 --> 00:55:59,279
Speaker 2: was a free commercial on both sides, for Mattel and

951
00:55:59,360 --> 00:56:05,839
Speaker 2: for US. Parentheses closed. Aqua followed up Aquarium in two

952
00:56:05,840 --> 00:56:09,200
Speaker 2: thousand with Aquarius, which no one cared about. It sold

953
00:56:09,200 --> 00:56:11,000
Speaker 2: well around the world but peaked at just number eighty

954
00:56:11,040 --> 00:56:13,360
Speaker 2: two in America. They took a break in two thousand

955
00:56:13,360 --> 00:56:15,760
Speaker 2: and one that lasted until two thousand and eight. Seven

956
00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:20,520
Speaker 2: years they released their third album called Something Magalomania I'm

957
00:56:20,600 --> 00:56:23,960
Speaker 2: just now told in twenty eleven. During this time, one

958
00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:28,239
Speaker 2: of those Danish people, Soren I don't care, married Lene

959
00:56:28,360 --> 00:56:31,640
Speaker 2: I also don't care, and they had two kids who cares.

960
00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:36,360
Speaker 2: But since they have separated after sixteen years, that's sad.

961
00:56:36,480 --> 00:56:38,680
Speaker 2: I wish their children grew up with two parents.

962
00:56:39,120 --> 00:56:39,600
Speaker 1: Quote.

963
00:56:39,760 --> 00:56:43,160
Speaker 2: We're the best of friends, one of them told Rolling Stone.

964
00:56:43,239 --> 00:56:46,800
Speaker 2: They still live in the same apartment building in units

965
00:56:46,840 --> 00:56:51,920
Speaker 2: next to each other. Leyne quote, my boyfriend is Soren's

966
00:56:52,280 --> 00:56:56,000
Speaker 2: studio technician. We go out to dinner with Soren and

967
00:56:56,080 --> 00:57:00,720
Speaker 2: his girlfriend. It's just a big, modern, happy family. Renee

968
00:57:00,760 --> 00:57:04,760
Speaker 2: and Sworden are my two best friends, to which Soren said,

969
00:57:05,120 --> 00:57:07,680
Speaker 2: I can imagine it looks really weird from the outside,

970
00:57:07,800 --> 00:57:09,640
Speaker 2: but it feels good from the inside.

971
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:10,720
Speaker 1: Wow.

972
00:57:10,920 --> 00:57:14,640
Speaker 2: Oh, that is an out of context quote for the Ages.

973
00:57:14,880 --> 00:57:18,160
Speaker 2: Thank you, Soren. Aside from all the lawsuits, the.

974
00:57:18,200 --> 00:57:22,600
Speaker 1: Song may have impacted Mattel's Barbie in a material way.

975
00:57:22,800 --> 00:57:26,360
Speaker 1: It is interesting to note that since late nineteen ninety seven,

976
00:57:26,720 --> 00:57:28,920
Speaker 1: a few months after the song peaked on the American charts,

977
00:57:28,920 --> 00:57:30,080
Speaker 1: Mattel announced that they were.

978
00:57:30,080 --> 00:57:33,880
Speaker 2: Changing Barbie's body type for just the third time in

979
00:57:33,920 --> 00:57:38,360
Speaker 2: her history, giving her a bigger waist, slimmer hips, and

980
00:57:38,480 --> 00:57:44,919
Speaker 2: b cup breasts. I'm told, I'm told. Ironically, seven years later,

981
00:57:44,960 --> 00:57:47,400
Speaker 2: in two thousand and nine, Mattel was looking to juice

982
00:57:47,440 --> 00:57:51,680
Speaker 2: sales for a new product, Comma Barbie Fashionistas.

983
00:57:52,160 --> 00:57:54,400
Speaker 1: Jordan, what is Barbie Fashionistas? Let me kick it to you.

984
00:57:55,320 --> 00:57:58,520
Speaker 1: It's a new doll that boasted a whopping twelve points

985
00:57:58,520 --> 00:58:03,680
Speaker 1: of movement. Wow, making flexible than any Barbie Doll in history. Well,

986
00:58:03,720 --> 00:58:06,880
Speaker 1: they turned to Barbie Girl for the song in a commercial. Yeah,

987
00:58:06,920 --> 00:58:09,040
Speaker 1: they took some of the more scandalous lyrics and they

988
00:58:09,080 --> 00:58:12,280
Speaker 1: gave him a kids bop style rewrite. So they had

989
00:58:12,280 --> 00:58:14,760
Speaker 1: lines like you can be a star no matter who

990
00:58:14,840 --> 00:58:17,800
Speaker 1: you are and I'm a girl in my world full

991
00:58:17,840 --> 00:58:21,640
Speaker 1: of fashion and fun. But yeah, because this doll was

992
00:58:21,720 --> 00:58:23,520
Speaker 1: this big selling point was that it had all these

993
00:58:23,560 --> 00:58:26,800
Speaker 1: points of movement. They incorporated a dance into the commercial

994
00:58:26,840 --> 00:58:30,840
Speaker 1: called the Barbie by choreographer Jaquelle Knight, who was famous

995
00:58:30,840 --> 00:58:34,240
Speaker 1: for working on Beyonce single Ladies Video the year before

996
00:58:34,280 --> 00:58:36,720
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight, Jordan, what does this remind

997
00:58:36,760 --> 00:58:39,360
Speaker 1: you of? It reminds me of a listicle I did

998
00:58:39,400 --> 00:58:41,720
Speaker 1: way back when I was at VH one, the most

999
00:58:41,760 --> 00:58:46,280
Speaker 1: inappropriate Kids Bop Songs ever, which was I mean, it's

1000
00:58:46,360 --> 00:58:48,640
Speaker 1: kind of amazing. First of all, there are a zillion

1001
00:58:48,720 --> 00:58:50,840
Speaker 1: of those kids Bob CDs. It's kind of like the

1002
00:58:51,320 --> 00:58:53,680
Speaker 1: now that's what I call music volume, like four hundred

1003
00:58:53,680 --> 00:58:55,720
Speaker 1: and eighty six, it's the same deal for kids bop.

1004
00:58:56,440 --> 00:58:59,160
Speaker 1: They did a version of Christina Aguilera's Come On Over,

1005
00:58:59,240 --> 00:59:03,200
Speaker 1: which is essentially a booty call song. There's also Kanye

1006
00:59:03,240 --> 00:59:08,040
Speaker 1: West Heartless, j Lo's I'm Real, and Miley Cyrus's Wrecking Ball,

1007
00:59:08,240 --> 00:59:12,480
Speaker 1: plus the emotional devastation of Adele Someone Like You. Nicki

1008
00:59:12,520 --> 00:59:17,520
Speaker 1: Minaj's Anaconda with the lyrics altered to being about big

1009
00:59:17,600 --> 00:59:21,800
Speaker 1: smarts instead of big butts, but there's still the whole

1010
00:59:22,160 --> 00:59:27,440
Speaker 1: Anaconda metaphor, which is troubling. There's kids singing Leona Lewis's

1011
00:59:27,440 --> 00:59:30,520
Speaker 1: Bleeding Love with lines like you cut me open and

1012
00:59:30,560 --> 00:59:35,000
Speaker 1: I keep bleeding, I keep bleeding. I believe left unaltered.

1013
00:59:36,120 --> 00:59:38,880
Speaker 1: Evan Essen says bring Me to Life is included with

1014
00:59:38,920 --> 00:59:43,400
Speaker 1: the line save me from the nothing I've become left Intact,

1015
00:59:44,160 --> 00:59:47,480
Speaker 1: sung by little kids. They also did My Immortal by

1016
00:59:47,520 --> 00:59:51,560
Speaker 1: Evan Essence two. The opening line of Kesha's TikTok was

1017
00:59:51,680 --> 00:59:55,160
Speaker 1: changed to brush my teeth when I have to pack

1018
00:59:55,680 --> 00:59:59,919
Speaker 1: instead of with a bottle of jack. Paparazzi by Lady

1019
01:00:00,080 --> 01:00:02,840
Speaker 1: Gaga was included, which I guess doesn't sound that weird

1020
01:00:02,920 --> 01:00:05,600
Speaker 1: until you realize that the entire song is about stalking.

1021
01:00:06,760 --> 01:00:09,920
Speaker 1: Cake by the Ocean was done by Kids Bob, which

1022
01:00:09,960 --> 01:00:11,720
Speaker 1: I guess should probably get a pass because there's a

1023
01:00:11,800 --> 01:00:15,240
Speaker 1: Jonas brother on there and closer by the Chainsmokers and

1024
01:00:15,320 --> 01:00:18,840
Speaker 1: Halsey and that uncra cracker song follow Me. It's also

1025
01:00:18,880 --> 01:00:22,840
Speaker 1: done by kids Bob, so that's all weird. Follow me?

1026
01:00:23,720 --> 01:00:25,480
Speaker 2: Everything is all right?

1027
01:00:25,720 --> 01:00:30,000
Speaker 1: That one yeah? That one yeah. Anyway, once again, back

1028
01:00:30,040 --> 01:00:33,200
Speaker 1: to Barbie Girl. By including the song in a Mattel commercial,

1029
01:00:33,200 --> 01:00:35,360
Speaker 1: you would expect that the toy makers and Aqua have

1030
01:00:35,440 --> 01:00:38,680
Speaker 1: buried the hatchet, but you would be wrong. In April

1031
01:00:38,760 --> 01:00:42,120
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, Aqua's management confirmed to Variety that the

1032
01:00:42,160 --> 01:00:45,920
Speaker 1: song wouldn't appear in the upcoming Barbie movie, directed by

1033
01:00:45,920 --> 01:00:49,520
Speaker 1: Greta Gerwig, although the spokesperson declined to say why. It's

1034
01:00:49,560 --> 01:00:52,120
Speaker 1: believed to be a result of the tense relationship between

1035
01:00:52,160 --> 01:00:55,840
Speaker 1: the band and Mattel, who are co producing the film. Lena,

1036
01:00:56,000 --> 01:00:58,440
Speaker 1: for one, it's fine with their song not being in

1037
01:00:58,480 --> 01:01:01,080
Speaker 1: the upcoming Barbie movie. She told Variety and in a

1038
01:01:01,120 --> 01:01:03,640
Speaker 1: twenty fifth anniversary piece about the song that using it

1039
01:01:03,680 --> 01:01:06,800
Speaker 1: in the film would be like quote cheese on cheese.

1040
01:01:07,280 --> 01:01:10,520
Speaker 1: In other words, two on the nose. That's a great expression.

1041
01:01:11,000 --> 01:01:13,360
Speaker 1: I totally understand why they didn't use it, but it's

1042
01:01:13,360 --> 01:01:15,240
Speaker 1: gonna bring us a lot of attention no matter what

1043
01:01:15,640 --> 01:01:19,160
Speaker 1: she said. Soren also joked, we should say we turned

1044
01:01:19,200 --> 01:01:25,000
Speaker 1: it down. Ryan Gosling is not good enough. However, the

1045
01:01:25,040 --> 01:01:29,040
Speaker 1: soundtrack features the Nicki Minaj joint Barbie World, which promptly

1046
01:01:29,040 --> 01:01:32,919
Speaker 1: samples Barbie. That's such a gimme. Nicki Minaj's fans are

1047
01:01:32,920 --> 01:01:37,760
Speaker 1: called Barbie's. It makes perfect sense. Great, but thank god,

1048
01:01:38,120 --> 01:01:41,439
Speaker 1: that's not the only twenty first century revamp of Barbie Girl.

1049
01:01:41,520 --> 01:01:44,640
Speaker 1: In the midst of all this film related Barbie mania,

1050
01:01:44,720 --> 01:01:47,720
Speaker 1: in early June twenty twenty three, Aqua released the first

1051
01:01:47,760 --> 01:01:50,320
Speaker 1: ever remix of Barbie Girl, on which they enlisted the

1052
01:01:50,360 --> 01:01:55,000
Speaker 1: talents of DJ Tiesto, you know with the umlauts. That

1053
01:01:55,120 --> 01:01:57,360
Speaker 1: is hilarious to me that in June of twenty twenty

1054
01:01:57,360 --> 01:01:58,040
Speaker 1: three they were.

1055
01:01:57,920 --> 01:02:01,840
Speaker 2: Like, who's in the zeitgeist? I don't know DJ Tisto

1056
01:02:02,240 --> 01:02:03,800
Speaker 2: from ten years ago?

1057
01:02:05,080 --> 01:02:06,680
Speaker 1: What did he even do? I don't remember.

1058
01:02:07,160 --> 01:02:15,320
Speaker 2: I don't know thebig dumlouds Derude's Sandstorm incredible ten years

1059
01:02:15,520 --> 01:02:19,080
Speaker 2: at least, Oh my god, Jordan, take us home.

1060
01:02:20,640 --> 01:02:24,080
Speaker 1: Apparently Tiesta's daughter inspired the remake because she loves the

1061
01:02:24,120 --> 01:02:27,880
Speaker 1: original song, and also, we can't forget other twenty first

1062
01:02:27,880 --> 01:02:31,080
Speaker 1: century tracks that tip their kangle Hat to Barbie Girl.

1063
01:02:31,560 --> 01:02:34,600
Speaker 1: In twenty fourteen, Ludacris nodded to the song with Party

1064
01:02:34,640 --> 01:02:39,320
Speaker 1: Girls featuring Wiz Khalifa, Jerremine and Kashmir Kat, and in

1065
01:02:39,360 --> 01:02:42,440
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, Ava Max transformed the song into an anthem

1066
01:02:42,440 --> 01:02:45,640
Speaker 1: about consent with not Your Barbie Girl, on which she

1067
01:02:45,720 --> 01:02:48,720
Speaker 1: sings you can't touch me there, you can't touch my

1068
01:02:48,800 --> 01:02:53,520
Speaker 1: body unless I say so. Ain't your Barbie No. All

1069
01:02:53,640 --> 01:02:57,600
Speaker 1: this to say, Barbie Girl's legacy looms large. This is

1070
01:02:57,680 --> 01:03:01,800
Speaker 1: especially the case on lists of bad songs. When the

1071
01:03:01,800 --> 01:03:04,040
Speaker 1: readers of Rolling Stone were asked to pick the worst

1072
01:03:04,040 --> 01:03:06,800
Speaker 1: song of the nineties back in twenty eleven, the honor

1073
01:03:06,840 --> 01:03:09,360
Speaker 1: went to Barbie Girl, vaulting it above the likes of

1074
01:03:09,520 --> 01:03:14,160
Speaker 1: I'm Too Sexy, Achey, Breaky Heart, mumbop mm mmm mmm,

1075
01:03:14,920 --> 01:03:21,760
Speaker 1: and Nookie was that last one? Nookie? No? One more time? Nokie.

1076
01:03:21,760 --> 01:03:23,600
Speaker 2: I'm getting a little feedback from your mind? Can you

1077
01:03:23,640 --> 01:03:26,840
Speaker 2: can you uh maybe try without the plosive.

1078
01:03:27,960 --> 01:03:32,120
Speaker 1: Blender magazine Right Now One More Time rated Barbie Girl

1079
01:03:32,600 --> 01:03:35,640
Speaker 1: as the thirty third worst song ever in its two

1080
01:03:35,640 --> 01:03:38,000
Speaker 1: thousand and four article Run for Your Life. It's the

1081
01:03:38,040 --> 01:03:42,680
Speaker 1: fifty worst songs ever. In a section entitled Scandalegian Pedo,

1082
01:03:42,760 --> 01:03:51,480
Speaker 1: pop alart erk God the Century print Media. Yeah, seriously,

1083
01:03:51,520 --> 01:03:58,000
Speaker 1: what is that? They suggested that quote perhaps the gambit

1084
01:03:58,080 --> 01:04:02,440
Speaker 1: sounded acceptable in the helium huffing singer Lena Lindstrom's native Norwegian,

1085
01:04:03,200 --> 01:04:09,480
Speaker 1: but that in English it's just plain wrong, racist or true.

1086
01:04:11,840 --> 01:04:15,840
Speaker 1: They labeled rapper Renee Diff's Besso profundo, come On, Barbie,

1087
01:04:15,920 --> 01:04:18,160
Speaker 1: Let's Go Party as the worst part of the song.

1088
01:04:18,200 --> 01:04:22,240
Speaker 1: I'm in mine to agree, and even Renee herself admits

1089
01:04:22,320 --> 01:04:26,240
Speaker 1: that listening to Barbie Girl can be a challenge. She

1090
01:04:26,320 --> 01:04:29,320
Speaker 1: told Rolling Stone, I can totally understand people getting pissed

1091
01:04:29,360 --> 01:04:32,760
Speaker 1: at it. It can be super annoying. It sticks like glue,

1092
01:04:33,800 --> 01:04:36,920
Speaker 1: and that's true. In February twenty twenty two, the videos

1093
01:04:36,920 --> 01:04:41,400
Speaker 1: surpassed a billion views on YouTube, an achievement reached only

1094
01:04:41,400 --> 01:04:45,560
Speaker 1: by heavy hitters like Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and Guns N'

1095
01:04:45,640 --> 01:04:52,040
Speaker 1: Roses November Rain. So you know, suck it? Oh, thank god?

1096
01:04:52,160 --> 01:04:55,160
Speaker 1: Right at the end of this, well, let's give the

1097
01:04:55,160 --> 01:04:59,760
Speaker 1: final word to oga's resident DJ, Renee Diff, the man

1098
01:04:59,800 --> 01:05:02,280
Speaker 1: who first met the lead singer of Arbi Girl on

1099
01:05:02,320 --> 01:05:04,960
Speaker 1: a cruise ship or I guess a ferry. I should

1100
01:05:04,960 --> 01:05:08,200
Speaker 1: say fell in love and invited her into his band,

1101
01:05:08,440 --> 01:05:10,840
Speaker 1: only to split up soon after. Wait, is that actually

1102
01:05:10,920 --> 01:05:13,200
Speaker 1: what happened? I wasn't paying attention for any of this.

1103
01:05:13,680 --> 01:05:16,760
Speaker 1: Holy did they meet on a cruise ship? No, they

1104
01:05:16,800 --> 01:05:20,480
Speaker 1: met on a ferry. They met on a Denmark to Norway,

1105
01:05:20,560 --> 01:05:25,000
Speaker 1: so lame and not surprising, and made all these nerds

1106
01:05:25,040 --> 01:05:28,440
Speaker 1: met on a boat. You love boats. No, this is

1107
01:05:28,440 --> 01:05:30,960
Speaker 1: why you pitched this. This is why you made me

1108
01:05:31,000 --> 01:05:31,600
Speaker 1: do this shit.

1109
01:05:32,040 --> 01:05:34,320
Speaker 2: It's because it was about a big boat. Were of

1110
01:05:34,400 --> 01:05:38,920
Speaker 2: Scandinavian nerds on a big boat. That's why you pitch this?

1111
01:05:39,080 --> 01:05:41,520
Speaker 2: And I almost got away with it. I haven't worn't

1112
01:05:41,560 --> 01:05:44,720
Speaker 2: for you medaling kids. It's midnight where Jordan is. And

1113
01:05:44,760 --> 01:05:46,800
Speaker 2: he made me get through a whole episode that I

1114
01:05:46,920 --> 01:05:52,320
Speaker 2: tried to disrupt constantly. And he'll pay for it too,

1115
01:05:52,920 --> 01:05:53,880
Speaker 2: because hit.

1116
01:05:54,280 --> 01:05:57,800
Speaker 1: In editing in the piece from Rolling Stone, Renee Diff

1117
01:05:57,840 --> 01:06:00,480
Speaker 1: explained the message is that it's a ok to be

1118
01:06:00,520 --> 01:06:02,360
Speaker 1: the person you are and look the way you look,

1119
01:06:02,400 --> 01:06:05,040
Speaker 1: and be confident in that you don't necessarily have to

1120
01:06:05,040 --> 01:06:07,800
Speaker 1: have plastic surgeries to be a better person. All these

1121
01:06:07,840 --> 01:06:10,240
Speaker 1: metaphors in the song were taboo to talk about, but

1122
01:06:10,320 --> 01:06:12,040
Speaker 1: we came out with a tongue in cheek way to

1123
01:06:12,080 --> 01:06:14,800
Speaker 1: present our song. It's a pop song, but it's also

1124
01:06:14,840 --> 01:06:16,840
Speaker 1: a song about how it's okay to be who you are,

1125
01:06:17,200 --> 01:06:20,840
Speaker 1: love who you are, and be yourself. Thank you for listening.

1126
01:06:20,880 --> 01:06:23,720
Speaker 1: This has been too much information. I'm Alex Heigel and

1127
01:06:23,760 --> 01:06:31,800
Speaker 1: I'm Jordan Runtag. We'll catch you next time. Too Much

1128
01:06:31,840 --> 01:06:35,600
Speaker 1: Information was a production of iHeartRadio. The show's executive producers

1129
01:06:35,640 --> 01:06:39,080
Speaker 1: are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtalk. The show's supervising producer

1130
01:06:39,200 --> 01:06:42,400
Speaker 1: is Michael Alder June. The show was researched, written and

1131
01:06:42,480 --> 01:06:45,800
Speaker 1: hosted by Jordan Runtogg and Alex Heigel, with original music

1132
01:06:45,800 --> 01:06:48,600
Speaker 1: by Seth Applebaum and a ghost Funk orchestra. If you

1133
01:06:48,680 --> 01:06:50,960
Speaker 1: like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review.

1134
01:06:51,200 --> 01:06:55,560
Speaker 1: For more podcasts and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1135
01:06:55,760 --> 01:07:01,760
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows that lack

1136
01:07:01,880 --> 01:07:01,920
Speaker 1: the

1137
01:07:03,600 --> 01:07:06,160
Speaker 2: Black Batimum and