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“Hi Ryan and Hi Ken, it’s Jimin. Congrats on your big release,” said the K-pop superstar in a video posted to his social media on July 24, days after Ryan Gosling upheld “the Ken Code” by giving the BTS member Ken’s guitar from the Barbie movie. Jimin, 27, showed off the instrument, which bore a white horse and the name “KEN” in the Metallica font on the body. “Thank you for this guitar. I really love it, and I look forward to watching Barbie. Go, Barbie!”
Ryan, 42, didn’t give the guitar to Jimin because he’s a big fan of “Butter” and wanted to hear an acoustic rendition. On July 19, Ryan appeared in a video on the official Barbie Instagram page where he acknowledged what many BTS ARMYs were pointing out: the outfit that Jimin wore in BTS’ “Permission To Dance” video was the same black-and-white western outfit that Ken wore in the Barbie movie.
“I have to give it to you. You wore it first. You definitely wore it best,” Ryan said humbly before getting to the matter at hand. “There’s an unspoken ‘Ken Code’ that if you bite another Ken’s style, you have to give them your most prized possession. So, I hope you’ll accept Ken’s guitar as my humble offering. “Besides, Ken doesn’t really play, anyways, so it’ll be much better in your hands.”
Ken might not play, but Ryan certainly does. Ryan’s two big musical moments in Barbie: his cover of Matchbox Twenty‘s “Push” and the original song “I’m Just Ken” (featuring Wolfgang Van Halen and Slash). “[Ryan’s] really got [that] it had to walk this line of not being funny or parody,” said producer Mark Ronson, who worked on the Barbie soundtrack, when talking about Ryan’s musical talents to Vanity Fair. “But obviously, the song [“I’m Just Ken”] is also kind of ridiculous at times. So he was really amazing, and when he really did start hitting the big notes, I was like, this dude is a vocal powerhouse!”
Barbie was not Ryan’s first go at music, and the success of the movie has brought more eyes to his band, Dead Man’s Bones. Formed with his friend Zach Shields in Los Angeles, the 2009 album Dead Man’s Bones was recorded in collaboration with the Silverlake Conservatory of Music Children’s Choir and contained songs like “My Body’s A Zombie For You” and “In The Room Where You Sleep.” (Mental Floss summed it up with their article titled “Ryan Gosling Recorded An Entire Album Of Halloween Music And It’s Actually Great.”)
When Ryan spoke with iHeartRadio Canada ahead of the Barbie premiere, iHeartRadio’s Shannon Burns asked if he would be interested in bringing the band back. “Never say never,” he said.