Marie Ulven Ringheim (born 16 February 1999) is a Norwegian singer-songwriter and record producer, known for her
indie pop
Indie pop (also typeset as indie-pop or indiepop) is a music genre and subculture that combines guitar pop with DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and sub ...
project Girl in Red (stylized as girl in red). Her early
EPs ''Chapter 1'' (2018) and ''Chapter 2'' (2019) were recorded in her bedroom and feature songs about romance and
mental health
Mental health encompasses emotional, psychological, and social well-being, influencing cognition, perception, and behavior. It likewise determines how an individual handles stress, interpersonal relationships, and decision-making. Mental health ...
. Released through
AWAL
AWAL (an initialism of Artists Without a Label) is a British music distribution company owned by Sony Music Entertainment. The company serves as an alternative to the traditional music label deal, offering deal structures to artists and independ ...
, her debut studio album ''
If I Could Make It Go Quiet'' (2021), was a critical and commercial success, and won three
Norwegian Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year.
Girl in Red has been cited as a
queer icon
A gay icon is a public figure who is regarded as a cultural icon of some members of the LGBT community.
The most widely recognized gay icons are often actresses and singers who garnered large LGBT fanbases, such as Judy Garland as a gay icon, Judy ...
by ''
Paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed ...
'',
and "one of the most astute and exciting singer-songwriters working in the world of guitar music" by ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''.
In January 2021, her singles "I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend" (2017) and "
We Fell in Love in October" (2018) were
certified gold
Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...
in the US.
Early life
Marie Ulven Ringheim was born in the town of
Horten
is a town and municipality in Vestfold in Vestfold og Telemark county, Norway—located along the Oslofjord. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Horten. The municipality also includes the town of Åsgårdstrand an ...
, Norway on 16 February 1999.
She grew up with her sisters and her divorced parents, and described Horten as "quiet and kinda boring" in an interview with
Triple J
Triple J (stylised in all lowercase) is a government-funded, national Australian Radio in Australia, radio station intended to appeal to listeners of alternative music, which began broadcasting in January 1975. The station also places a greate ...
in October 2019.
Her mother worked with technology and her father worked as a policeman.
Her grandfather could play the guitar and piano; however, she grew up without instruments in the home.
While in high school, Ulven was curious about becoming a teacher before she was introduced to the guitar and songwriting at the age of 14.
Ulven received her first guitar as a Christmas gift from her grandfather in 2012, but didn't start playing it until 2013 after losing interest in
fingerboard
The fingerboard (also known as a fretboard on fretted instruments) is an important component of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, that is laminated to the front of the neck of an instrument. The stri ...
ing.
She credits her grandfather for sparking her interest in music.
Ulven had taught herself piano, guitar and music production from the comfort of her bedroom. She began by writing and releasing
Norwegian music
Much has been learned about early music in Norway from physical artifacts found during archaeological digs. These include instruments such as the lur. Viking and medieval sagas also describe musical activity, as do the accounts of priests and pil ...
and planned to study music, but never concluded that she was going to become a musician.
Career
2015–2017: SoundCloud and "I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend"
After getting a
Blue Yeti microphone from her father in 2015,
Ulven began writing and releasing Norwegian music to
SoundCloud
SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming se ...
under the moniker of "Lydia X".
She stopped attending guitar lessons after six months once her teacher refused to acknowledge her interest in songwriting and producing.
Ulven coined the stagename "Girl in Red" after attempting to identify herself in a crowd to a friend via
text
Text may refer to:
Written word
* Text (literary theory), any object that can be read, including:
**Religious text, a writing that a religious tradition considers to be sacred
**Text, a verse or passage from scripture used in expository preachin ...
. Using the new moniker, she published her debut single "I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend" on SoundCloud in November 2016, where it got about 5 thousand streams within five months.
Following the single's feature on the Norwegian music website ''
NRK
NRK, an abbreviation of the Norwegian ''Norsk Rikskringkasting Aksjeselskap, AS'', generally expressed in English as the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, is the Norwegian government-owned radio and television public broadcasting company, and ...
Urørt'', "I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend" amassed thousands of streams and gained Ulven a large online following.
2018–2019: ''Chapter 1'' and ''Chapter 2''
![Girl in Red Los Angeles 2019 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Girl_in_Red_Los_Angeles_2019_2.jpg)
Ulven's 2018 singles "Summer Depression" and "Girls" gained millions of views and streams online. In early 2019, she won her first award when she was presented with "Norwegian Newcomer of the Year" at the 2018
GAFFA Awards
''Gaffa'' (stylized as ''GAFFA'') is a free Nordic music magazine with local editions in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. ''Gaffa'' is Denmark's largest and oldest music magazine. It has been published since 1983 and has 320,000 print readers and 75 ...
.
Ulven released "I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend" on
Apple Music
Apple Music is a music, audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. Users select music to stream to their device on-demand, or they can listen to existing playlists. The service also includes the Internet radio stations Apple M ...
in March 2018.
"I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend" was listed at number 9 on ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' list of "The 68 Best Songs of 2018"
and won "Untouched of the Year" ("") at the 2018
P3 Gull
''P3 Gull'' (in en, "P3 Gold"), is a music show and an award ceremony organized by the Norwegian radio station NRK P3. P3 Gold was first held on 29 November 2013 at Sentrum Scene in Oslo. It dealt Awards in four categories: "Newcomer of the Year" ...
awards.
Ulven
opened for
Clairo
Claire Elizabeth Cottrill (born August 18, 1998), known professionally as Clairo, is an American singer-songwriter. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, and raised in Carlisle, Massachusetts, she began posting music on the internet at age 13.
Clairo rose ...
in Dublin and Paris in September 2018. Ulven released her debut EP, ''Chapter 1'', on 14 September 2018. Ulven released the standalone single "We Fell in Love in October" in November 2018, which would peak at number 14 on the
US Rock Charts in October 2019.
Ulven embarked on her first North American tour supporting
Conan Gray
Conan Lee Gray (born December 5, 1998) is an American singer and songwriter. Born in Lemon Grove, California and raised in Georgetown, Texas, he began uploading vlogs, Cover version, covers and original songs to YouTube as a teenager. Gray sig ...
in March 2019.
She released ''Chapter 2'', her second EP, as well as ''Beginnings'', a compilation of her entire single catalogue into one exclusively vinyl album, on 6 September 2019 through the music distributor
AWAL
AWAL (an initialism of Artists Without a Label) is a British music distribution company owned by Sony Music Entertainment. The company serves as an alternative to the traditional music label deal, offering deal structures to artists and independ ...
.
She embarked on her first international headlining "World in Red" tour in October 2019, performing in cities such as Dublin and San Francisco.
Ulven was nominated for "Newcomer of the Year" at the 2019 P3 Gull awards.
2020–present: ''If I Could Make It Go Quiet''
In December 2019, Ulven signed a worldwide recording contract with British music distribution company
AWAL
AWAL (an initialism of Artists Without a Label) is a British music distribution company owned by Sony Music Entertainment. The company serves as an alternative to the traditional music label deal, offering deal structures to artists and independ ...
. In a rare phenomenon for most new label signees, her entire existing discography, which had all originally been
self-released
Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to written media, such as books and magazines, either as an ebook or as a physical copy using POD (pr ...
, was subsequently registered under this label on all digital music platforms. Ulven appeared on the front cover of both ''
Gay Times
''Gay Times'' (stylized in all caps), also known as ''Gay Times Magazine'' and as ''GT'', is a UK-based LGBTQ+ media brand established in 1975. Originally a magazine for gay and bisexual men, the company now includes content for the LGBTQ+ commu ...
'' and ''
Dork
Dork is a pejorative term for a person (compare with " dweeb" and "fool").
Dork may also refer to: People
* Dork Sahagian, Armenian-American climate scientist
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Dork'' (EP), an album by AFI
* ''Dork'' (magaz ...
'' in December 2019, as well as the cover of ''
NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...
'' in January 2020.
She provided the single "Kate's Not Here" for the original soundtrack of the 2020 supernatural horror film ''
The Turning''. Ulven was nominated for the "Newcomer of the Year" award and, as a result, the Gramo scholarship at the 2020
Spellemannprisen
Spellemannprisen, often referred to as the Norwegian Grammy Awards in English, is a Norwegian music award presented to Norwegian musicians. The award was established by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), an organizati ...
, also known elsewhere as the Norwegian Grammy Awards.
In May 2020, Ulven was included in the annual ''
Dazed
''Dazed'' (''Dazed & Confused'' until February 2014) is a bi-monthly British style magazine founded in 1991. It covers music, fashion, film, art, and literature. Dazed is published by Dazed Media, an independent media group known for producing ...
'' 100 list after her single "I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend" passed 150 million streams.
In mid 2020, Girl in Red became a popular symbol of queer identification on the online platform
TikTok
TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes.
TikTok is an international version ...
, where users would adopt the common phrase, "Do you listen to Girl in Red?" as a way of
discreetly asking if someone is a
lesbian
A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...
. In November, she released the standalone
holiday single "Two Queens in a King Sized Bed", shortly before she was awarded "Artist of the Year" at the 2020 P3 Gull Awards.
Ulven released her debut studio album, titled ''
If I Could Make It Go Quiet'', on 30 April 2021. The album has thus far been supported by four singles: "Midnight Love", in April 2020, "Rue" in August 2020, "Serotonin" in March 2021,
and "You Stupid Bitch" in April 2021. The cover artwork for the album, made by Norwegian painter and artist Fredrik Wiig Sørensen, was originally an
oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...
on a 80x80 cm canvas titled ''The Antizero.'' In 2022, Ulven signed to
Irving Azoff
Irving Azoff (; born December 12, 1947) is an American entertainment executive and chairman of Full Stop Management, which represents recording artists. In the mid-1980s, he brought success to MCA Records.
Since September 2013, he has been chai ...
's PRO, Global Music Rights (GMR).
On 14 October 2022, she released her latest single, "October Passed Me By", which is a sequel to "We Fell in Love in October".
Girl In Red will be an opening act on multiple shows of the US leg of
Taylor Swift
Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her vivid songwriting—often inspired by her personal life—has received critical praise and wide media coverage. Bor ...
's upcoming
The Eras Tour
The Eras Tour (stylized as Taylor Swift The Eras Tour) is the upcoming sixth headlining concert tour by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. Having not toured for her studio albums '' Lover'' (2019), ''Folklore'' (2020), and '' Evermore'' ...
.
Artistry and influences
The subject matters of Ulven's music range from romance and heartbreak to mental illness and the experience of being queer. She named
Taylor Swift
Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her vivid songwriting—often inspired by her personal life—has received critical praise and wide media coverage. Bor ...
as one of her biggest musical influences.
Personal life
Ulven now resides in the
Grünerløkka
Grünerløkka is a borough of the city of Oslo, Norway. Grünerløkka became part of the city of Oslo (then Christiania) in 1858. Grünerløkka was traditionally a working class district; however, since the late 20th century the area has increasi ...
district of
Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...
. She identifies as
gay
''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'.
While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...
and
queer
''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the lat ...
. She studied music production and songwriting at
Westerdals Oslo School of Arts, Communication and Technology
Westerdals Oslo School of Arts, Communication and Technology was established in July 2014 as a result of the merger of the three colleges Westerdals School of Communication, NISS ( Nordic Institute of Stage and Studio) and NITH (The Norwegian Sc ...
.
Ulven revealed in 2021 that she has been diagnosed with
obsessive–compulsive disorder
Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental and behavioral disorder in which an individual has intrusive thoughts and/or feels the need to perform certain routines repeatedly to the extent where it induces distress or impairs general ...
and
generalized anxiety disorder
Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a mental and behavioral disorder, specifically an anxiety disorder characterized by excessive, uncontrollable and often irrational worry about events or activities. Worry often interferes with daily function ...
.
Discography
Studio albums
Compilation albums
Extended plays
Singles
As lead artist
As featured artist
Videography
Other appearances
Television
Awards and nominations
Tours
Headlining
* The World in Red Tour (2019)
* Make It Go Quiet Tour (2022)
Supporting
* Fall Tour (2018)
(Clairo
Claire Elizabeth Cottrill (born August 18, 1998), known professionally as Clairo, is an American singer-songwriter. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, and raised in Carlisle, Massachusetts, she began posting music on the internet at age 13.
Clairo rose ...
)
* The Sunset Shows (2018–19)
(Conan Gray
Conan Lee Gray (born December 5, 1998) is an American singer and songwriter. Born in Lemon Grove, California and raised in Georgetown, Texas, he began uploading vlogs, Cover version, covers and original songs to YouTube as a teenager. Gray sig ...
)
*
Happier Than Ever, The World Tour
Happier Than Ever, The World Tour is the sixth concert tour by American singer Billie Eilish, in support of her second studio album ''Happier Than Ever'' (2021). The tour commenced on February 3, 2022, in New Orleans, Louisiana, at Smoothie Kin ...
(2022)
(Billie Eilish
Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell ( ; born December 18, 2001) is an American singer-songwriter. She first gained public attention in 2015 with her debut single " Ocean Eyes", written and produced by her brother Finneas O'Connell, with whom ...
)
*
The Eras Tour
The Eras Tour (stylized as Taylor Swift The Eras Tour) is the upcoming sixth headlining concert tour by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. Having not toured for her studio albums '' Lover'' (2019), ''Folklore'' (2020), and '' Evermore'' ...
(2023) (
Taylor Swift
Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her vivid songwriting—often inspired by her personal life—has received critical praise and wide media coverage. Bor ...
)
Notes
References
External links
*
*
*
Girl in Redon
Spotify
Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...
*
{{Authority control
1999 births
Living people
Musicians from Oslo
21st-century Norwegian musicians
Norwegian Internet celebrities
People from Horten
Norwegian LGBT musicians
Norwegian LGBT singers
Queer musicians
Indie pop musicians
Indie rock musicians
Bedroom pop musicians
Musicians from Horten
20th-century LGBT people
21st-century LGBT people
People with obsessive–compulsive disorder