“I’m Just Ken” from the blockbuster film hit the Billboard Hot 100 in its first week at No. 87
Ken is finally getting some solo limelight. In its first week, Ryan Gosling’s Barbie song “I’m Just Ken” officially made the Billboard Hot 100, debuting at No. 87 on the chart.
Gosling, who plays Barbie’s superfluous counterpart Ken in the blockbuster film, was featured in a clip promoting the ballad ahead of the movie’s release last month. In the video, he performs a giant Eighties power ballad with Slash on guitar alongside a legion of Kens standing up for their right to be an accessory with some hint of a personality. “Doesn’t seem to matter what I do/I’m always number two,” he laments in the opening verse, which later dives into the chorus as he bemoans, “I’m just Ken/Anywhere else I’d be a ten/Is it my destiny to live and die a life of blonde fragility?”
“Just Ken” was penned for the Barbie soundtrack by executive music producer Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt. “I don’t read a lot of scripts, but it was just everything I want in a movie,” Ronson previously told Rolling Stone. “I was like, ‘If I don’t get this gig, this is gonna be my favorite movie of the year.’
Ken aside, the ranking is Gosling’s first appearance on the Hot 100. The actor has a notable history of flexing his singing chops, and was part of Los Angeles rock duo Dead Man’s Bones, which released their self-titled debut album in 2009. And of course, who can forget 2016’s La La Land and also, The Mickey Mouse Club.