Ryan Gosling's goofy, complicated Ken has turned out to be the breakout star of Greta Gerwig's megablockbuster Barbie, and that popularity has officially started impacting the charts.
Gosling's ballad "I'm Just Ken" has officially entered the Billboard Hot 100, coming in at No. 87 in its first week. It's the actor and sometimes musician's first appearance on the Hot 100, a feat he never managed with his last musical, La La Land, nor during his stint on The Mickey Mouse Club, or as one part of spooky suspenders-wearing duo Dead Man's Bones (whose 2009 self-titled album is actually kinda good — Cat Power covered their "Pa Pa Power" on 2021's Covers).
Gosling (along with pretty much every other Ken) also covers Matchbox Twenty's "Push" in the movie, but it's "I'm Just Ken" that seems to have struck a chord. It's a hammy heartbreaker about Ken's life in Barbie's shadow, with lines like, "'Cause I'm just Ken / Anywhere else, I'd be a 10 / Is it my destiny to live and die / A life of blond fragility?"
Revisit it below, and try to absorb some Kenergy.
Gosling's ballad "I'm Just Ken" has officially entered the Billboard Hot 100, coming in at No. 87 in its first week. It's the actor and sometimes musician's first appearance on the Hot 100, a feat he never managed with his last musical, La La Land, nor during his stint on The Mickey Mouse Club, or as one part of spooky suspenders-wearing duo Dead Man's Bones (whose 2009 self-titled album is actually kinda good — Cat Power covered their "Pa Pa Power" on 2021's Covers).
Gosling (along with pretty much every other Ken) also covers Matchbox Twenty's "Push" in the movie, but it's "I'm Just Ken" that seems to have struck a chord. It's a hammy heartbreaker about Ken's life in Barbie's shadow, with lines like, "'Cause I'm just Ken / Anywhere else, I'd be a 10 / Is it my destiny to live and die / A life of blond fragility?"
Revisit it below, and try to absorb some Kenergy.
