It’s awards campaigning season, and much of the Barbie crew is already out in full-swing. Greta Gerwig has appeared on the cover of every magazine and the couch of every talk show. Billie Eilish and Finneas have retold the origin story of their gorgeous “What Was I Made For?” myriad times. Margot Robbie got everyone into a tizzy just by being in a room alone with Cillian Murphy, a.k.a. Barbie’s true better half, J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Ryan “Ken” Gosling, however? While he’s done nary a big talk show interview, magazine spread, or pap walk this fall, his awards-season promo effort is arguably the best of them all: He entered the recording booth.
While the voting window for this year’s Grammys has closed, Gosling put out an entire Ken EP just in time to remind Golden Globes and, hopefully, Oscar voters about how great he was in Barbie. Mark Ronson, who executive produced the popular, multi-Grammy-nominated Barbie soundtrack and co-wrote the song, teamed up with Gosling to reimagine “I’m Just Ken,” just in time for Kristmas. And not only have they put out a must-watch video of them performing the new take in the studio, but they recorded both disco and acoustic versions of the track.
The Kristmas remix is the obvious highlight. In an Instagram post, Ronson explained that its origins date back to just last month. After the pair reconnected during an awards event—’tis the season!—“we began to text & talk about music,” Ronson wrote. “I told him I fantasized about us performing [“I’m Just Ken”] live, so we started to dream what that might sound like.
“I was also dying to show the song in a different context,” Ronson continued, noting that Gosling “demanded I go ‘Full Ronson’ with the arrangement (which I took to mean 2007 motown/wall of sound-obsessed me).” The result was something that Ronson and Gosling dubbed peak Christmas. And thus, Ronson says, “here we are, a week later serving up this version that we love with about 5 days ’til no one wants to hear a Xmas record, but sometimes u have to do it 4 fun (& maybe a little for Barbie).”
Even if you tire of Christmas music on Dec. 26, the song still has (k)enough of the original “I’m Just Ken” (k)energy to not sound cloying. As Ronson says in the video, “The ‘Christmas’ [vibe] is what’s making it fresh.” This take of the song does have, as Ronson suggested, a Motown-like gallop to it, with a hazy orchestral gloss on top to help capture the holiday spirit. But what really makes this such a fun, worthwhile release is the music video: Gosling goofing around on the piano, messing with the song’s chords? Wonderful. My only complaint is that Ronson turned down Gosling’s suggestion to add a little “Hey, girl” reference at the top of this remix—which would have delighted all of us who loved that meme so much in middle school.
The acoustic version is fun as well, although Ronson and Gosling’s choice to keep the Kristmas remix’s “Merry Kristmas, Barbie” tag on the acoustic track is a little odd. The real reason for an “I’m Just Ken” acoustic track is for all the college guys who keep guitars handy at parties to learn a new song to play—and with them all on winter break right now, that “Kristmas” line adds nothing.
Meanwhile, the disco track is light on the Gosling, with Ronson enlisting producer Purple Disco Machine to build the song entirely around the original track’s dance break. If you want to groove out to the part of the song that says “Can you feel the Kenergy?” for three minutes straight, well, here you go. And it’s pretty good!
But it’s the Kristmas centerpiece and accompanying video that we’re here for. Which brings me to ask: With Barbie finally streaming on Max, can we get some more clips of Gosling and co. recording their tracks, please? I could watch another two hours of “I’m Just Ken” outtakes alone.
