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It's Friday, April 8th, 2020. I'm Jackson Bird today. We turn back the clocks to 1997

for a history of the song Barbie Girl and a look at its influence on music. Plus the Neolithic

origins of Short King Spring and mark your calendars for the great North

American solar eclipse. Here's some cool stuff for your ride home.

Well, since it's Friday, I thought I'd have a bit of fun and share some highlights from a

recent Rolling Stone

oral history of one of my unironically favorite songs, Barbie Girl by Aqua.

And maybe after you hear some of the history and give it a re-listen, you'll understand what I mean

when I say that this goofy relic of the 90s is a genuinely good and reasonably sophisticated song.

So the band behind the song, Aqua, are from Denmark, and I'm just going to kick this off with

an apology for mispronouncing their names. It's a bit tough to find interviews where

individual band members are mentioned by name, so doing

what I can here.

But anyways, Sorin Rasted and Klaus Noreen met when they were 18 in the late 80s and

...