barbie girl

The song was voted the fourth "Worst Number One Of All Time" in a VH1 poll, and was featured in spot #32 on VH1's "Most Awesomely Bad Songs... Ever" countdown.

The lyrics of the song are about Barbie and Ken Carson, the dolls made by Mattel. As such, the lyrics drew the ire of Barbie's corporate owners.

Mattel sued the band, saying they violated the Barbie trademark and turned Barbie into a sex object, referring to her as a "Blonde Bimbo." They alleged the song had violated their copyrights and trademarks of Barbie, and that its lyrics had tarnished the reputation of their trademark and impinged on their marketing plan. Aqua claimed that Mattel injected their own meanings into the song's lyrics and MCA Records were not about to let their hit single be suppressed without a fight. They contested Mattel's claims and countersued for defamation.

The lawsuit filed by Mattel against MCA was dismissed by the lower courts, and this dismissal was upheld though Mattel took their case up to the Supreme Court of the United States (Mattel's appeal was later rejected). In 2002, a Judge Alex Kozinski ruled the song was protected as a parody under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and also threw out the defamation lawsuit Aqua's record company filed against Mattel. Kozinski concluded his ruling by saying "The parties are advised to chill." The case was dismissed, and in the process, it garnered lots of media attention for the song and the band.

This controversy was used by journalist Naomi Klein to make a political point in her book No Logo, where she stated that the monopolies created by copyrights and trademarks are unfairly and differently enforced based on the legal budgets of the conflicting parties and their ability to defend their expressions by hiring lawyers.

Alternate versions

"Barbie Girl" was spoofed as "Ugly Girl", not by the popular "Weird Al" Yankovic, but by an unknown parodist.

Punk band Home Grown (sometimes mistaken as MxPx for one reason or another) mockingly covered the song, on their album "EP Phone Home"

Dutch singer Ome Henk parodied the song in his native language.

German metal band Rammstein, contrary to popular belief, did not cover the song in German language. This misunderstanding was started on a filesharing network, which labeled the Dutch song of Ome Henk as a German song by Rammstein.

The German duo Lynne & Tessa produced a lip-synched internet video of the song, which has consistently been ranked high in the top-100 list on Google Video since it was released in May, 2006.

The Indian British comedy skit show, Goodness Gracious Me made a parody of the song called "Punjabi Girl" and varied the melody to resemble a more Indian melody.

Another version of the song has been sung in Russian by an unknown artist, the subject of the song having to do with a little girl singing about a dollhouse to her mother.

Brazilian singer Kelly Key recorded a version in Portuguese of this song, keeping the line "I'm a Barbie Girl" ("Sou a Barbie Girl") but changing the rest of the lyrics.

External links

• Lyrics
• MTV news over the lawsuit being filed by Mattel
• BBC news story about the lawsuit being won by MCA
• Text of Mattel, Inc. v. MCA Records, Inc., the verdict that favored MCA (PDF file)
• CNN story about the US Supreme Court rejection of Mattel's appeal