Pop’s perpetual Peter Pan Mark Ronson has assembled this glitzy doll’s house of pop royalty to soundtrack this summer’s biggest movie blockbuster, co-writing five tracks himself and producing a handful more. Viewed simply as an ensemble mixtape, it shines like a kaleidoscope in 20 shades of coral. But the accompanying film feels as though it’s straining to live its truth as a fully fledged musical, and as a result a few of the soundtrack’s starry contributors – Sam Smith, Tame Impala, Haim – can’t seem to decide whether they’re serving the gods of pop or narrative. Still, Ronson touches glory with the 11 o’clock number I’m Just Ken, launching Ryan Gosling’s pitch-corrected himbo into full masculine meltdown.
For all the Midas touch he exhibits on Dua Lipa’s Dance the Night, Ronson the songwriter lacks a requisite sprinkling of saccharine camp for a job like this. Fortunately, this ingredient is amply lavished elsewhere: in the beeping BPMs of PinkPantheress and Ava Max, the gloriously artificial K-pop regiment Fifty Fifty, and the merciless hit merchant Charli XCX belting her irresistibly idiotic bop Speed Drive.
