With her first major label debut behind, Marie Ulven is back baby. In this FRONTPAGE feature, we get the full story behind girl in red.
It’s a sunny afternoon in March, and girl in red is pattering around her Oslo apartment showing off all her little things. “I like to keep it playful,” the 25-year-old musician born Marie Ulven says of her airy and minimal Scandinavian-style space, which includes splashes of bright crimson as a nod to her stage name. “I like to keep it colorful and not so serious.” Sporting a black sweater and red trousers, she introduces me to the corner of her living room where she’s set up her piano and guitars. Ever since her breakout as a teenage bedroom artist, home is still where she feels most comfortable working on the indie pop songs that have made her into a global icon. Though, as she starts to sell out bigger venues across the U.S. and Europe ahead of her major label debut album, I’M DOING IT AGAIN BABY!, girl in red is stepping into a new era, embracing rockstar flamboyance and big pop hooks. But don’t worry, she’s staying true to her brutally honest songwriting.
Changes have been afoot in girl in red’s life for a while now – especially after she joined Taylor Swift on the historic Eras tour last summer as an opening act. Ever since seeing the inner machinery of Swift’s well-oiled touring machine, she’s been inspired to “pursue music” in a more serious way, which to her also means embracing a more cosmopolitan lifestyle befitting a star on the rise. There are artifacts in her house of her past obsessions, like her Toy Story figurines that sit atop a teetering stack of Tintin comics. But there are also signs of the new glamor, too, like the lingering suitcases from her February trip to New York, where she attended her first fashion week shows for Tory Burch and Khaite. “I’ve been thinking I’ve lost my hobbies, so I’m like ‘Wait, I need some stuff to add to my character. I need to add to my things,’” she says, showing off the premium Caran d’Ache Swiss wood pencils that she’s been using to draw. In recent months, she’s also taken up collecting lamps and vintage wines, and acquiring investment pieces like a red Corvette and a Cartier Tank watch like Andy Warhol.
“First sports car” and “first luxury watch” are fitting purchases to ring in I’M DOING IT AGAIN BABY!, girl in red’s most larger-than-life and sleek work yet. The project folds together everything - funky synth-pop grooves, cinematic sound effects, angsty breakdowns, and raucous guitar riffs - while still aiming for commercial appeal with the same winking self-awareness as a Warhol painting. Girl in red drew inspiration from the visual artist after learning of his self-made journey as a pop art icon from a working class family in Pittsburgh. “I find his story fascinating. He created a name for himself as an artist and to be among these cultural elites in New York,” she says. She references his infamous studio, The Factory, on the album closer “★★★★★,” as she acclaims her own work according to the Norwegian rating system: “Six out of six, I never miss/You gotta be delusional to be in the biz.”
Girl in red was getting a send-up of her own when she began work on I’M DOING IT AGAIN BABY! At the time, she was on tour behind her first LP, selling out bigger venues – and nabbing an opening spot for Billie Eilish. But then came the Eras tour, where Swift’s stratospheric fame and fanciful stagecraft inspired her to build an over-the-top persona of her own. “I was already in the midst of making the album when I was at the Eras tour, but I was going through a rough patch. I was so unsure of everything,” girl in red explains. “But then the tour just really cemented everything that I’d been leading up to.” Once a young singer-songwriter who used to wear Urban Outfitters beanies and thrift store slacks, she reintroduces herself on I’M DOING IT AGAIN BABY! as a “rockstar from the ‘70s” who wears Japanese denim, loafers, and Ray-Bans. “It's more creative, it's more sick, it's more fun,” she says of the project she co-produced with close collaborator Matias Tellez. “It's just fucking ballsy, fuck you, fuck everything type of energy.”
The album with so-called “fuck you” energy also seems crafted to appeal to a lot of fucking people, with its its upbeat catchy melodies and Sabrina Carpenter feature. (“She's an American pop star and I'm something else,” girl in red says of the collaboration.) “World domination” could even be on the horizon – a vision that the artist first declared as a teenager in 2019. What does that mean exactly to her? “I just want everyone [of all ages] to hear the music,” she says. “I also want to be able to tour the world and learn about different kinds of cultures.”
“I really believe in this album,” she adds. “But then I also have moments where I'm like, ‘Culture is completely fucked.’” It’s really hard to predict what’s going to truly get the masses in a frenzy. “Maybe throughout the whole year there's maybe four things that unites the world – or it feels like, at least, on my For You page.”
Girl in RedI've just been wearing a wool sweater and a shirt, looking like a finance bro with a Patagonia jacket. Maybe I was putting everything into the music, so I became this blank canvas, or like an NPC. I feel like I’m changing now.
“It feels like world domination seems almost impossible sometimes,’ she continues. “And then I'm like, ‘No, I'm going to do this fucking shit.’”
Though she’s closer to the goal than ever before, girl in red says she’s now been “humbled by life,” as getting older has given her the wisdom to know her dreams aren’t as easy as they previously seemed. Instead, she’s been trying to tap back into the limitless confidence of her younger self, who “really romanticized my life and the world,” she says. Her childhood growing up in the port city of Horten, Norway, was “boring and safe.” She kept herself occupied with a flurry of interests, from fingerboarding – literally doing tricks on a miniature skateboard with your fingers – to Minecraft. “I was constantly trying to fit in with some boys that didn't really want to hang out with me,” she recalls of her high school years. “I was not really one of the girlies and I wasn't one of the dudes and I was kind of just like, ‘Fuck.’”
Things started to turn around when her grandfather gifted her a guitar at age 14. “I was able to let go of wanting to fit in,” she says. “I just pursued all my music stuff and did my own thing. Life really started after that.” With a cheap USB microphone, she began to record her own songs in Norwegian on GarageBand and upload them onto SoundCloud under the alias Lydia X.
Then, girl in red had a change of heart: She wanted to start singing in English. “After growing a little older and listening to more music, I wanted to write stuff that felt a little more mature,” she recalls of the time. “The songs I was writing in Norwegian were really trivial, not really great lyricism. My lyrics [in English] felt mature to me at that time.” After deciding on the new moniker girl in red, she uploaded her 2016 debut single, “i wanna be your girlfriend,” a wistful indie folk song of sapphic yearning. When it came out, it felt rare and powerful to see a 17-year-old unabashedly sing about queer love with both wisdom and purity. Imbued with a feeling of nostalgic bliss, the track took off online.
By 2019, after releasing her hazy, lovesick hits “Girls” and “We Fell in Love in October” girl in red had become an international breakout star. Yet it wasn’t until the following year that truly became the figurehead of a community on TikTok, when young lesbians and bi girls began using the phrase “Do you listen to girl in red?” as code for asking each other if they liked women – boosted by the longstanding virality of her songs on the app.
Now, when she’s asked about the phenomenon, which truly lasted for the better part of a year, she just laughs it off. “I thought it was just something that Hey Mamas lesbians did,” she says, using the Gen-Z parlance for masculine presenting queer women. “Then people started DMing me and commenting on Instagram, so it wasn’t just a TikTok thing anymore. It was everywhere.”
That time period was all a blur, especially since it was when girl in red was gearing up to release her debut album, 2021’s If I Could Make It Go Quiet, which saw her expanding her bedroom folk-pop sound into a more kaleidoscopic array of genres. Girl in red believes that the project was the reason Swift became a fan and invited her onto the Eras tour. “I know every single word to every single song on her album,” Swift said onstage for girl in red’s first appearance in Chicago. “She’s one of my favorite artists, I’m so happy she’s joined the tour.”
girl in redMy main goal is to try and keep the essence of a girl in red show, but also elevate it and challenge myself.
The experience motivated girl in red to view her career with a more shrewd business mindset. “I’m not trying to copy Taylor’s work ethic, because I don't even stand a chance,” she says. “But it’s interesting just to pay attention to how far ahead she looks. She's planning two, three years ahead constantly. And I've never planned more than what I'm doing tomorrow, so I need to really adapt to looking far ahead. Even though playing stadiums is far away, and it's a lot of hard work to even get there, playing a show that's remotely similar is a big inspiration.”
But while I’M DOING IT AGAIN BABY! sees girl in red careening into pop extravagance, she also bares her insecurities and relationship woes in equally full measure. Throughout, she sings of the inner growth she’s found through the two-and-a-half years spent with her girlfriend; their magical first meeting depicted on the campy “A Night To Remember.” Meanwhile, on “Pick Me,” girl in red reckons with the possibility that her girlfriend could choose to date a man over her, while “Ugly Side” is a self-deprecating look at what she thinks are her biggest flaws. “I feel like you can hear in the songwriting that I've been confronted with some sides of myself that I wasn't aware of,” she says of the more revealing tracks. “I wasn't aware of all my different love languages, so, there are many great things I learned, too. But I wasn't aware that I was so jealous, insecure, or scared of being left. But it’s important to talk about those things. Those are horrible feelings to have and not tell your partner about, because they will mostly likely be like, ‘Honey, it’s okay.’”
These days, girl in red is focused on expanding the universe around I’M DOING IT AGAIN BABY! Soon, she plans to unveil a series of sculptures she made to accompany the album, which explores “the difference [between] believing in whatever you're making and how the world might view it” (stay tuned for the big reveal). She’s also dreaming up ideas for the upcoming tour, which starts rehearsal soon in Nashville, and whose set design is inspired by the colorful designer lamps she’s collecting in her house, including a Joe Colombo and Artemide. One looks like a lollipop, while another looks like the hat of the Super Mario character Toad. “My main goal is to try and keep the essence of a girl in red show, but also elevate it and challenge myself,” she says. “I want to figure out: What kind of performer can I be? Am I only the girl with the guitar who's rocking out, or can I do something that's more choreographed? I would probably never dance on stage, but also never say never – Justin.” (She’s referring to Bieber.)
As she enters her rockstar era, she’s also intent on expanding her personal style, which she’d curtailed during the album making process. “I’ve just been the most basic looking person,” she admits, explaining that she’s merged styles with her 35-year-old producer Matias Tellz since they started buying all the same clothes, bags, and jackets like they’re twins dressed up by their mom. “I've just been wearing a wool sweater and a shirt, looking like a finance bro with a Patagonia jacket. Maybe I was putting everything into the music, so I became this blank canvas, or like an NPC. I feel like I’m changing now.”
So she’s shifted into buying clothes with colors and recently went on a drunken online shopping spree for books on Swiss design and typography. She’s been eying Pharrell’s Speedy leather bags for Louis Vuitton and the Italian shoe brand Golden Goose, and though she’s unsure whether she could pull off a fashion collab, she says she admires Tyler, the Creator’s ability to “[put his] hands on all different kinds of things.”
All of these ideas, items, and interests will eventually coalesce toward the next girl in red album, which she already feels the pressure to work on. And if she wants to release her next project in a year-and-a-half – with time to mix and master and press vinyl – she needs to start now. “I need to sit down and get my finger out of my ass and start making stuff,” she admits. “Sometimes, I get a bit concerned because the ideas I've been getting recently are just elevator background music stuff,” she says, before humming out an idea for a bright, jazzy melody. “And I'm like, ‘Wait, I don't think the girlies and the gays are going to love this.’ But also, I have to pursue whatever interests me. And if that's elevator music, then I just have to do it, I guess.”
