(Warner)
Dua Lipa and Charli XCX bring high camp to this Mark Ronson-produced movie mixtape that climaxes with the sugary filth of Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice’s Barbie World
Pop’s perpetual Peter Pan Mark Ronson has assembled this glitzy doll’s house of pop royalty to soundtrack this summer’s biggest movie blockbuster, co-writing five tracks himself and producing a handful more. Viewed simply as an ensemble mixtape, it shines like a kaleidoscope in 20 shades of coral. But the accompanying film feels as though it’s straining to live its truth as a fully fledged musical, and as a result a few of the soundtrack’s starry contributors – Sam Smith, Tame Impala, Haim – can’t seem to decide whether they’re serving the gods of pop or narrative. Still, Ronson touches glory with the 11 o’clock number I’m Just Ken, launching Ryan Gosling’s pitch-corrected himbo into full masculine meltdown.
For all the Midas touch he exhibits on Dua Lipa’s Dance the Night, Ronson the songwriter lacks a requisite sprinkling of saccharine camp for a job like this. Fortunately, this ingredient is amply lavished elsewhere: in the beeping BPMs of PinkPantheress and Ava Max, the gloriously artificial K-pop regiment Fifty Fifty, and the merciless hit merchant Charli XCX belting her irresistibly idiotic bop Speed Drive.
