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Aqua Members – Discuss How “Barbie Girl” Has Affected Their Music Career
It’s been 25 years since the dance-worthy catchy song “Barbie Girl” was released into the world.
Speaking about how the song affected their fame, lead singer Lene Nystrøm said: “I would be compared with ‘Barbie Girl’ all the time,” Nystrøm, 48, explained while sitting next to her brightly colorful bandmates Rene Dif and Søren Rasted during a Zoom interview with PEOPLE. “It really made me into the darkest drug chick in the world with skulls all over because I had to do something opposite than that!”
She added with a laugh. “So yeah, that time definitely had its rough patches.”
In 1997, Aqua was thrust into global fame, the likes of which they never tasted before and which they’re yet to taste again. At the time, the band had only been making music for three years before they were able to penetrate the US market with “Barbie Girl”, and, according to Nystrøm, it still hurts that 25 years later, they still haven’t been able to repeat that kind of success.
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“‘Barbie Girl’ kind of over shined all the other hits we had,” added Rasted, 53. “We didn’t have any other hits in America. We put ‘Lollipop (Candyman)’ out as the second single and it never worked. It was a bit disappointing because in America, suddenly we became a one-hit-wonder band. Do we wish things would’ve worked out differently in America? Absolutely.”
Nystrøm – Says They Couldn’t Create A Concert From One Song
While the band Aqua planned to retain their new found fan base in America, they knew it was tricky to do so.
“We were being pulled upon from so many sides of the world at that time, and the fact is that we needed to go to do promotion is so many other places,” admitted Nystrøm of the expectations that came with the release of the smash hit released back in May 1997. “You really have to stay, live, and work in America for such a long time to make the whole country work. We needed to go make a concert in America, but you can’t make a concert with one song.”
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You can almost say that “Barbie Girl” is a song that has conquered time and has been able to connect with a whole new generation of music lovers.
“It’s amazing to see how much people are embracing [it], especially on TikTok because they’re so creative,” said Dif, 54, of how the song has integrated with modern society. “They will do it with the guitar or a bass or on a bucket, or they will do a dance — all sorts of stuff that at some point goes viral. I think that’s their main goal, but you never know what goes viral! We are just sitting here as spectators.”
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