Unleash certain tunes on the world and they never let go. Textbook examples from the Middle Ages include the cryptic Burgundian war song “L’Homme Armé” (The Man in Arms) and the Iberian dance known as “La Folía,” both catnip to more classical composers than you can shake a stick at. Jump cut to the present, and there’s “Barbie Girl.”
“Barbie Girl” made its debut in 1997 on the first studio album from Aqua, a Danish dance-pop band that cannot otherwise be said to have set the world on fire. Yet “Barbie Girl”—“Life in plastic! It’s fantastic!”—became a worldwide sensation. Inspired by an exhibition of kitsch culture, the dippy ditty hovers to this day in 16th place on the U.K. list of best-selling singles of all time—no threat to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” (No. 3), but safely ahead of The Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” (No. 18). And, really, you haven’t lived until you’ve caught the “Barbie Girl” cover by Johnny Cash—back from the flip side through the wonders of A.I.
Variations on “Barbie Girl” have been legion in other media as well. As movie historians and scholars of pop culture cannot have helped noticing, Aqua’s 12-year-old official video anticipates the iconography and bubble-gum palette of Greta Gerwig’s current box-office Klondike to an uncanny degree (even as a new eye-candy video from Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice sends it up).
An almost Platonic take, in the style of J. S. Bach, is the handiwork of the occasional composer-pianist Josep Castanyer Alonso, of Spain, who at 26 holds a “day” job in the cello section of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. Over the past two years, he has had fun producing unlikely YouTube videos of impeccably constructed counterpoint exercises on the “Angry Birds” theme and a Swedish ice-cream-truck jingle. Until recently, the favorite was “‘I’m a Barbie Girl’ but it’s a three voice fugue!” Since that one dropped a year ago, north of half a million viewers have clicked in.
To celebrate opening-day of Gerwig’s movie, Alonso whipped up an even more popular seven-minute set of catchy new Barbie Variations in the styles of Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Schubert, Chopin, and Ravel. As he plays, onscreen titles point out each master’s stylistic tics, techniques, and fingerprints. It’s all highly educational.With Alonso in charge, you can pick up a lot of musical nuts and bolts virtually by osmosis. Oh, and if you think his film-making is plain vanilla, stick around for post-recital disclosures about his one-man process. There’s more to it than meets an unsuspecting eye.
Josep Castanyer Alonso’s video “I’m a Barbie girl again, but in the style of 6 classical composers” is available for streaming on YouTube
Matthew Gurewitsch writes about opera and classical music for AIR MAIL. He lives in Hawaii