Ryan Gosling’s stellar ‘I’m Just Ken’ Oscars performance inspires huge jump in streams
By Maria Sherman, The Associated Press on March 18, 2024.
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Can you feel the Kenergy? Ryan Gosling’s Oscars performance of the “Barbie” power ballad “I’m Just Ken” stole the show earlier this month. The popularity of his star-studded, Slash-soloing, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”-channeling set is still being felt. Luminate, the industry data and analytics company, found that on-demand U.S. audio and video streams for “I’m Just Ken” topped three million streams in the week after the Academy Awards. That’s a 422% increase from the prior week, when it had 600,000 streams. Video made up a large portion of that jump: moving from 70,000 streams the week prior to 1.8 million. That increase was felt across the music of “Barbie,” but in smaller amounts: the full-film’s soundtrack, “Barbie The Album,” saw a jump of 23%, from 19 million to 23 million, and the Oscar-winning song, Billie Eilish and Finneas’ “What Was I Made For?” saw an increase of 19% across U.S. audio and video streams, from 6.7 million to eight million. With their win, Eilish, 22, became the youngest person to win two Oscars. The second youngest? Her brother Finneas, at age 26. The Oscars’ “I’m Just Ken” performance – which featured a stage full of “Kens” and Gosling serenading “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig and others – also saw big numbers on YouTube: two million views on the Oscars’ official channel and 8.6 million on Atlantic Records’ page – the major label that released “Barbie The Album.” The Oscars themselves saw a bump in ratings, also due to the popularity of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.” An estimated 19.5 million people watched the 96th Academy Awards ceremony on ABC, up 4% from last year – and the biggest number drawn by the telecast in four years. 9-8
