“I was forced into using my little girl voice”: Aqua’s Lene Nystrøm on the legacy of Barbie Girl

Lene Nystrøm never played with Barbie dolls. “If I got my hands on one, I cut the hair off,” she says. As the person responsible for the earworm lyrics ‘Life in plastic, it’s fantastic’, this is the last thing you’d expect to hear. But for the lead singer of Aqua, the success of the band and that iconic hit is partly because she herself is no ‘Barbie Girl’.

“[The public] were totally expecting me to be Barbie Girl. Look like Barbie Girl, act as Barbie Girl. They took it very literally,” Nystrøm says, as she sits on a couch in her new Copenhagen home. Her response? To turn “very punky, very, very early on to contradict it.”

Cast your mind back 25 years, where, on the US Billboard Hot 100, at number seven sits bubblegum pop song ‘Barbie Girl’. Slotted between Third Eye Blind’s ‘Semi-Charmed Life’ and ‘Never Make a Promise’ by Dru Hill, the track, which is a tongue-in-cheek take on plastic surgery, is about to completely explode worldwide.

The sound was “unique, very new”, as Nystrøm puts it, and almost child-like in its vibe. But it worked. Overnight she and her fellow band members René Dif, Søren Rasted and Claus Norreen became a global phenomenon.

Nystrøm grew up in Norway, playing the guitar with her dad and listening to The Rolling Stones and Creedence Clearwater Revival. A gig on a cruise ship led to a chance encounter with Dif, who was DJing on board. The pair started dating and when Dif brought Nystrøm back to Denmark, he introduced her to “some guys he was working with.” The guys, Rasted and Norreen, were experimenting with pop music and, coincidentally, needed a female voice.

“We were really attracted to the Euro beats and the really fast BPM, 140 BPM in fact. We didn't copy others, but we really listened to what was going on, especially in Sweden,” Nystrøm recalls. The band, called Joyspeed at the time, actually got signed to Warner Music in Sweden and released a single called ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ – yes, that ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ – which Nystrøm politely says “didn’t work.”

A move to Denmark, a fresh label and a new name, however, proved more fruitful. Nystrøm explains that from the get go “the four of us had this energy together” and a way of working that was different to the more “manufactured” pop bands at the time. In a process that is quite rare for the pop genre, Aqua writes, produces and sings all their own music. “Søren and Claus are the most genius f***ing songwriters ever,” adds Nystrøm.

But nailing that distinct, quirky Aqua sound was a bumpy journey. “When it comes to my voice, we had lots of arguments and I destroyed several pairs of headsets,” she laughs. “I felt I was forced into using my little girl voice and I have a special technique for doing that.” Nystrøm soon came around when she heard the tunes her ‘little girl voice’ had created. “Nobody sounded like that and it did fit the music. I totally understood.”

Nystrøm’s ‘truer voice’, however, can be found in other Aqua hits. ‘Turn Back Time’, ‘We Belong to the Sea’, ‘My Mamma Said’ and ‘Playmate to Jesus’ are just a few she rattles off. “There are lots of songs, just more dark horse songs,” she says. She actually cites ‘Turn Back Time’ as a favourite to perform still to this day. “I always sit beside Søren on the piano [when we perform it]. It's just this moment we have together and it's nice.”

A couple years after she dated Dif, Nystrøm and Rasted actually married in 2001 and had two children together, India and Billie, now 17 and 16 respectively, before separating in 2017. Working with an ex-boyfriend and an ex-husband could be difficult, but Nystrøm says it’s something they have overcome. “When you have something bigger together, you want to fight for that to still be the same,” she says. “There was never any kind of discussion with René or Søren to stop playing, to stop having concerts or to stop working. We have that in common and it's a good feeling when we are together.”

The idea for ‘Barbie Girl’ originated from Rasted, who had attended a doll exhibition and came back humming the tune. “Some songs take ages to write, but this didn’t,” Nystrøm recalls. “We knew we had something good on our hands, not the worldwide explosion kinda knowledge, but knew that we had some sort of gold.” They were right. Within weeks of the song’s release, Aqua was everywhere. “It was absolutely bonkers. We were flying into five countries a day. The [rise to stardom] is just the most amazing thing in the world. Everything is new. Everything is so exciting,” says Nystrøm. A highlight for her during this time was singing with opera icon Luciano Pavarotti.

The song, however, didn’t come without controversy. For a start, the label was unsuccessfully sued by Mattel for trademark infringement. The lyrics also sparked very strong opinions, something that Nystrøm found hard at the time. “It offended lots of people. Actually, it still does,” she says. “Maybe because the lyrics are more daring today in certain ways than they were at that time.” As a satirical look at society’s desire to be perfect, Nystrøm argues the song is even more relevant today than it was back in 1997.

Given this satirical nature, Nystrøm hoped the song would ultimately convey a message of encouragement to be yourself. But when it came time to make the music video, it was suggested that Nystrøm look like Barbie. She immediately put her foot down. “I wanted to sing the song, but I didn't want to be looked upon as Barbie Girl... You can stretch me far, but when I know it's right, I stand my ground,” she says. This is why the video sees the addition of two actors as Barbie and Ken. In a true Barbie dream, the actors ended up getting married.

The Aqua aesthetic was something the band worked hard on. For many years, they didn’t have a stylist, instead holding onto “this idea that it has to fit the music,” says Nystrøm. The look was bubbly and colourful, with a punky edge. The four of them would often go on excursions to second-hand shops and “dress up.”

Nystrøm recalls one of their first award shows in Denmark, before ‘Barbie Girl' had been released. “People were screaming ‘Wannabes’ at us, but we were like, ‘We don't care. We think we look good’,” she says.

Like Bella Hadid and Dua Lipa, Nystrøm is enjoying the current Y2K revival, the only difference is she actually lived it. “The crop tops and the baggy pants that’s what I was wearing at the start. It’s funny to see how everything comes around. Music-wise and in fashion,” she says. Her daughter, however, is less impressed. “Everyone that comes into my room is like, 'What the f***?' And you can spend hours in [my wardrobe]. But my daughter, not so much,” Nystrøm laughs. “Mum's wardrobe is not that popular here... I think her watching me in out-there clothes throughout the years has made her go the other way.”

With two studio albums, Aquarium and Aquarius, under their belt, Aqua took a break in 2001, a decision Nystrøm took very hard. She describes it as a huge “painful” divorce, which found her signed to a label as a solo artist. “They put me into this music machine and I was standing alone and I didn't feel I had the voice. I just felt freaking lonely. I was used to having the boys around me. It wasn't something I felt good about,” she explains.

But in hindsight she knows the break was what was needed. It gave them all a chance to have families, calm down after the exhaustion of touring and explore other avenues. “It gave us a lot, but it also took a lot from us touring that much,” she says. During this time Nystrøm did some song writing for Girls Aloud and tried her hand at acting. Her role in the 2009 film Deliver Us from Evil under Danish director Ole Bornedal, is something she is especially proud of.

Then in 2007, Nystrøm was flipping through channels when she saw a sign. “Suddenly they showed a clip of us. And I was like, ‘You know, let's get the band back together ’,” she says. Aqua went back to touring and released another studio album, Megalomania, in 2011. But it’s not necessarily about new music – for the pop sensation, it’s about performing and being together. “We don't feel pressured into anything. We do go into the studio every once in a while to play around and see if something comes out of it. But we haven't had that feeling yet that this should be released. It has to be 100 percent. Otherwise, we don't want to release it,” she explains.

Norreen, who Nystrøm describes as her “soulmate on stage”, has since left the band. The plan is to keep going until they can’t keep going anymore. “We are totally enjoying it now more than ever,” she says. One look at Nystrøm's colourful Instagram feed can confirm this. Even in a world of filters you can’t fake that level of fun and happiness.

Given that it was her father who first turned her onto music, I ask Nystrøm how he feels about her success. She explains he’s their number one fan. “He's the dude at the shows walking around in full on merchandise, standing in the pit and, you know, talking with the girls and saying, ‘That's my daughter’,” she says.

Her dad is hardly the only Aqua super fan – the band has meant so much to so many and ‘Barbie Girl’ remains a karaoke and lipsync classic, as well as a mainstay at throwback dance parties worldwide. One fan from Australia has gotten all the same tattoos as Nystrøm and buys her 15 gifts a year. “I remember once I kissed on a piece of paper,” she says. “He wanted my kiss. And he's got that tattooed in some places I don't even want to mention.”