“Barbie” is out and with an epic first weekend of $155 million, it’s breaking records as a movie, especially with a female director, a la Greta Gerwig. Rob Thomas, lead singer of the ’90s band Matchbox Twenty was happy that Gerwig pushed him to let the film use the song, “Push” and it turned out not to be the center of all the jokes.
Rob Thomas Remembers Why Unpacking Matchbox Twenty Was “Cool”
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Perhaps Thomas, 51, was initially hesitant about having his song featured in the film because he was well aware of Matchbox Twenty’s reputation as a cool band to make fun of.
Speaking to USA Today, Thomas recalled a time in the ’90s when the more successful they were, the bigger their target and it all came down to posters, in movies. Said Thomas, “I thought it was funny [that Greta Gerwig wanted to use our song]. But in “Bring It On,” (Kirsten Dunst’s character) has this shitty boyfriend. And there’s a scene where he’s in his dorm room with a Matchbox Twenty poster in the background. There was a period during the 90s where the more successful we were, the bigger our targets were. We are an easy elimination.”
Despite this, Thomas was still okay with “Push” being used in the film and even gave Gerwig permission for Ryan Gosling to re-record the song in his voice.
He went on to say that when he got the call to use “Push” for “Barbie,” he was told, “‘Ken by the fireplace, he’s playing the song and it’s his favorite band.’ So I did this thinking I was going to be a joke, and I’m fine with that. I’m a little thick-skinned.”
After the movie was released, Julie Greenwald of Atlantic Records met Thomas and told him, “You come out of the movie loving Ken and loving ‘Push.’” Thomas said, “And I was like, ‘Aww. Well, very good!’”
Then again, after Ryan Gosling’s baritone vocals in “I’m Just Ken”, you can’t NOT love his singing!
Greta Gerwig Remembers Matchbox Twenty Being Her “Man.”
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Greta Gerwig is so adamant that she wants both Barbie and Kens to each have their own ’90s anthem. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Gerwig said, “If Barbie loves the Indigo Girls’ song “Closer to Fine,” which is one of my all-time favorites, Kens might be really into Matchbox Twenty.”
Gerwig who was born in 1983 fondly remembers “Push” from her teenage years, “It played all the time on Quad 106.5 when I was in seventh grade, and if it wasn’t there, it was on 107.9. I really liked the song that. I hear it all the time and I’m like, I feel it. There’s something in this.”
He also said, “Growing up, I loved that song. I was like, ‘This is my rock ‘n’ roll, Dad. Enjoy The Who, but this is my friend.’ And it wasn’t until college that I really thought, ‘What’s that song?’ Just thinking about my 13-year-old self singing along and really meaning it, I was like, ‘That’s so cool.’ I look at it and, in a way, (Thomas) is playing a character. It’s almost like a story song.”
Here is the song and the story:
Greta Gerwig’s Use of “Push” Raises Rob Thomas’s Excitement on Her
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“Push” made the Billboard Top 10 in 1997, and was taken from Matchbox Twenty’s 1996 debut album “Yourself or Someone Like You”. The autobiographical lyrics are about a man who suffered emotional abuse from his partner and Gerwig remembers feeling something when she heard the song, like it was a story about something.
Ken plays this song for Barbie, [WARNING: Spoiler’s Ahead] or when it goes well, the Kens play this song to the Barbies after taking over Barbieland and making it their Kendom. They play this song for hours on the beach before Barbie plays on their jealousy by switching them with another Ken.
The use of the song in the hit film has made it popular again, and that only solidifies Thomas’s fascination with Gerwig as he says, “Greta Gerwig has been one of my fans forever, until one time I was on a plane. and I called my wife, like, “Honey, Greta Gerwig just got on the plane, oh my God.” So just that fact [the use of the song] doesn’t diminish my love for Greta, that’s better.”
Here’s Gosling’s version of “Push”.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
