When the Barbie soundtrack was announced back in May, it set up a mystery fit for Detective Barbie: Who are the two secret pop stars? We got a bit closer to the answer today when Billie Eilish revealed that her previously unannounced contribution to the film, a song called “What Was I Made For?,†would be out July 13. And we might have just gotten more key clues to the other surprise artist. Speaking to Time about the soundtrack, executive producer Mark Ronson stoked speculation when he said one of the musicians was “obviously one of the fucking greatest living artists around but also had a very personal, idiosyncratic tie to Barbie as well.†Yes, that looks like a lot to parse (and hinges on Ronson using the word idiosyncratic right), but it may be simpler than that. Just look at this picture of Drake wearing pink nail polish at his tour kickoff last night — Barbie pink, we’d say.
That’s not confirmation on its own, but now let’s go back to that Ronson quote. Even if you think Drake has fallen off in recent years, he’s still a record-setting force on the charts, so we’ll give him “obviously one of the greatest living artists around.†As for his “very personal, idiosyncratic tie to Barbie,†the man’s best friends with Barbie herself, Nicki Minaj! (Remember, she’s already on the soundtrack for the Aqua flip “Barbie World†with Ice Spice.) And crucially, notice that Ronson never used a gender pronoun to describe the artist in question. If any man deserves that kind of Barbie fanfare, it just might be Drake.
But, okay, if we’re somehow wrong, let’s run through some other guesses. Twitter’s Arianators seem to think the mystery guest is Ariana Grande for one of the same reasons as above — her close collaborations with Nicki Minaj over the years. It could also be “Plastic Doll†singer Lady Gaga, who released a Monster High doll in 2016 and sure seems like she belongs on that soundtrack, or Beyoncé, who released a Barbie alongside the rest of Destiny’s Child back in 2005 and loves herself a good movie soundtrack. (The Swifties obviously want it to be Taylor Swift, and sure, she’s definitely surprise-worthy, but we don’t know what her special relationship to Barbie would be.) Or did you know Madonna and Barbie are the same age, 64 years young? That seems pretty personal and idiosyncratic to us …
Update July 9: It was Billie Eilish. Mark Ronson tweeted that his remarks about an artist having a “very personal, idiosyncratic tie to Barbie†was about Eilish and Eilish alone. Well, maybe Finneas too. Buzzing Pop believes the final artist on the Barbie soundtrack will be Sam Smith, with a song called “Man I Am.†Maybe Drake can get on a remix?