Category: 1997

In our ongoing journey, we are covering many exceptional songs. But from time to time we also have to give a nod to the terrible ones. Some atrocious anthems turned into massive master-strokes and in order to have a holistic education you obviously need to know about these as well.

So without further ado we present the Danish-Norwegian band Aqua. Mostly considered a one-hit wonder outside their native countries they landed a huge international hit with “Barbie Girl” that in the UK to this day remains one of the best-selling singles ever. It certainly did not hurt sales that they were sued by Mattel, the manufacturer of the eponymous doll (Mattel lost, being advised to “chill” by the judge).

Shortly after the lawsuit Mattel changed the proportions of the doll slightly – for only the third time since the first models were sold in 1959.

When the Backstreet Boys, who had released their first album on an international market in 1996 and were already hugely successful in Europe told Jive Records president that they wanted to include a song called “Backstreet’s Back” – written by Swedish hitmakers Max Martin and Denniz Pop – on what was to be their debut album in the US, and even release it as a first single, he was having none of it. It was kind of hard to argue back from where exactly (the band argued back in the states, but didn’t get their way). And so the first million copies of the US album was produced without the track. Only when Radio stations close to Canada – where the song quickly caught on – started picking up the track and playing it, too, he relented and the track finally made it into the rest of the albums produced.

The song became a huge success in the states as well, but when it was time to produce the video (with director Joseph Kahn who so far had done mostly Hip-Hop and Grunge videos and wanted to diversify into pop) and it was decided to lean on Michel Jackson’s famous “Thriller” with a side-serving of the Rocky Horror Show, with their bus supposedly breaking down and them having to look for shelter in a haunted mansion, the label went through the same spiel again, arguing that MTV would not go for the concept. So the band funded the video themselves and had to fight hard to get reimbursed once the video – again – was quite successful after all.

It won “Best Group Video” in 1998’s Music Video Awards.