Aqua Reflect On 25 Years Of ‘Barbie Girl,’ Their Debut Album, And Have Las Vegas And Coachella In Their Sights

“If we released “Barbie Girl” or Aquarium now, I don’t know how it would go. I think there was a moment just waiting there for us,” mused Aqua’s René Dif as we discussed the 25th anniversary of their debut album.

The occasion is being marked by an exclusive digital and vinyl re-release. Already established with two hit singles off the album in Europe, “Barbie Girl”’s radio domination catapulted them to worldwide fame and a bonafide pop culture phenomenon that continues to this day.

Thirty-three million albums later, I caught up with Dif, Lene Nystrøm, and Søren Rasted to go back to where all it began and talk about where they still hope to go.

Simon Thompson: Did you guys ever think that Aquarium would be one of those albums that would be celebrated and rereleased a quarter of a century later?

Søren Rasted: Maybe René did (laughs).

René Dif: Yeah, maybe I was big-headed and had some visions that not many people had, but seriously, I think it’s still as big of a surprise for us as it is for everybody else.

Rasted: It’s really amazing. We’ve been touring, and we’ve been playing live for so many years now, and we just kept that thing going. For us being here 25 years later, it’s not a crazy thing because, in answer to your question, this is a machine we’ve been giving fuel to for over 20 years, but I don’t think anybody would have thought we’d be celebrating this album now. Not even us.

Dif: I think it hasn’t sunk in yet because we’ve been talking about having this 25th anniversary party but just among ourselves and people who have been in touch with Aqua all these years. I think that is when it would sink in. We still play together every year, so it doesn’t seem like a huge achievement, but these days, to be a pop band and still be here 25 years late, it’s almost unheard of.

Rasted: “Barbie Girl” was a bubble gum pop track that you might have thought would have died a lot earlier. Aquarium is an album that just won’t be killed.

Thompson: “Barbie Girl” was the lead rack off the album internationally. It was everywhere almost overnight. How dramatic and instantaneous was the change for you guys?

Rasted: It was very dramatic. We came from success in Scandinavia. We had two number ones in Denmark and Norway with “Roses Are Red” and “My Oh My.” “Barbie Girl” was the third single and was released everywhere. We knew we had a hit, but we had no idea it was going to be so big, and, to be honest, after a while, we were very afraid we would be a one-hit wonder. However, we had a fantastic record company, especially in the UK, so it was a huge relief when “Dr. Jones” came out as the follow-up and was number one. When “Turn Back Time” became number one as the third single, that was when we were really happy.

Thompson: How many times have you performed “Barbie Girl”?

Rasted: I think we heard it 100,000 times even before it came out (laughs).

Thompson: Do you still get a buzz from it? Is it now more about the buzz from the crowd rather than the track itself?

Lene Nystrøm: Honestly, I have to say it’s both. When we go on stage, we still have the same hunger, and the audience is there because they think it would be a good concert to see. Playing “Barbie Girl” today is different from playing it back then because of the fights and the miscommunications. There’s a good feeling around the whole song for me now, and I love going on stage and seeing the audience’s anticipation. It’s a fantastic feeling, and it feels like give and take.

Dif: It’s amazing to see that from the first second of the song, the audience is waiting for it to explode.

Rasted: We can brag about ourselves here because we’ve always been an amazing live band. We are one of the few pop bands from the 90s who have taken live shows seriously, and we play live. Because we’ve been doing this for so many years, we’ve gathered an audience who keep coming back.

Nystrøm: We’re not a manufactured band. We’ve always worked harder than other bands, working our asses off to convince people that we’re more than one-hit wonders. Headlining around the world, we don’t have to sit and talk about ourselves in 20 interviews a day; we can just go out on stage and focus on what we want to do: play live, meet the fans, and enjoy our musical family on the road. I feel so privileged.

Rasted: Doing 30 or 40 concerts a year as we do now makes Aqua a valuable gift for us. It is no longer taking up our whole lives like it did in the beginning. Now it’s something we can have fun with every once in a while. It’s less full on, and that’s great.

Thompson: So you do it more now because you want to rather than because you have to?

Nystrøm: We’ve been touring like this since we reunited in 2008. Before that, and especially when Aquarium came out, we were in high demand worldwide. There wasn’t time to stay in countries and explore; we were just going around the world three times to do promotion. We were in one country one day and another the next, and that’s fun but also really exhausting. When we came back, we wanted to focus on the concerts.

Thompson: I’ve seen some of your live shows on YouTube, and you put a lot of effort into them. Your show would be a lot of fun as a residency in Las Vegas. Would you consider that? Has it ever come up?

Dif: No, but that’s my biggest dream.

Nystrøm: He talks about it all the time.

Diff: I think Aqua should experience two things: a residency in Vegas, maybe two weeks or a month, and Coachella. I think both of those would be pretty awesome. It would allow people to listen to some of our other songs that they maybe forgot or haven’t heard because they were focused on Barbie Girl.

Thompson: After “Turn Back Time” was such a hit and appeared in the movie Sliding Doors, I did wonder if you’d be asked to do more soundtrack stuff and even a Bond theme, but it didn’t happen. I’m guessing you have turned down a lot of things too?

Rasted: I mean, never say never. Of course, that would be amazing.

Nystrøm: We have turned things down. We turned down the 90s festivals for many years here in Scandinavia, Canada, and Australia because we were doing our own concerts. I also didn’t want to be connected to the 90s artists who weren’t taking it seriously enough for me. We do headline some of those now, but I feel some people take the money and run. We have a legacy to protect.

Thompson: The music video for “Barbie Girl” is a classic. The music videos were a big deal for Aqua and were impressive productions.

Rasted: Yeah, they were essential. We were doing different kinds of videos for the other bands and shooting them in Technicolor. We had these fun and silly stories, and the colors fitted the music and the production. Sometimes when people ask us why we think we became such a big success, I say it’s partly because the videos were great. All the elements were there. The second album, which was not as popular in places like the UK, gave us more of a feeling of respect than the first album.

Nystrøm: We’ve always used that stuff as fuel to help us push on, though, because we want to prove to people what we can do. We’re still like that.

Thompson: I asked about Vegas, but has a jukebox stage musical ever been discussed because of the video’s theatrical nature?

Nystrøm: We have spoken to a couple of people about it.

Rasted: Yeah, we’ve seen so many scripts and people that wanted to do an Aqua musical, but it’s hard because we were not really that much into musicals.

Nystrøm: Maybe one day.

Thompson: When Aquarium came out, some critics were begrudgingly complimentary about it even though they didn’t like it. Were you surprised they cut you that slack?

Nystrøm: That’s a critic with an open mind. They can see something is good even if they don’t love it.

Dif: Those were people who took time to dig into the music, listen to all the songs, and understand what it was instead of just saying the obvious. That said, from the beginning, we got some serious shit from many journalists, but you could tell they heard one song, and that was it.

Nystrøm: It was shocking music for some people at that time, in many different ways. Some people said “Barbie Girl” was the worst song in the world, but we took that as a compliment. At least it’s an opinion.

Rasted: When so many people love you, there will be so many people who hate you. As much as I love “Barbie Girl,” I also understand why some people might hate it. That’s okay.

Thompson: Have you ever encountered anyone in the music industry who you were surprised to find out was a fan?

Nystrøm: I don’t know if he was a fan, but George Michael complimented me once.

Dif: Annie Lennox asked me for my autograph, which was pretty dope. It was for her kids, but I was still pretty stunned.

Nystrøm: I think the ultimate compliment from another artist or band is when they cover one of your songs and do something like “Barbie Girl” on their own terms. That’s a way of them showing us that they understand us.

Dif: There are a lot of slow versions of the song that I like.

Thompson: Would it have been impossible for Aqua and Aquarium to have landed and had this success at any other time in music history? This really was a moment.

Rasted: You’re absolutely right.

Dif: We came at a point where there was room for a band like us, and it was a breath of fresh air and a positivity to how we presented our music. I don’t think there’ll be any other time like that. If we released “Barbie Girl” or Aquarium now, I don’t know how it would go. I think there was a moment just waiting there for us.

The special 25th anniversary rerelease of Aquarium is available digitally and on vinyl now.