Girl in Red Signs With Columbia Records

Chris Willman
·3 min read
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Girl in Red, aka Marie Ulven, the Norwegian singer/songwriter who has achieved considerable acclaim and racked up solid streaming results in the indie realm, has signed with Columbia Records.

The label confirmed the signing to Variety. The news was first reported by Hits.

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After a series of digital songs and EPs, Girl in Red released her first full-length album, “If I Could Make It Go Quiet,” last spring. Variety named it one of the top 10 albums of 2021.

Two of the 22-year-old performer’s earlier singles, 2017’s “I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend” and 2018’s “We Fell in Love With October,” both recorded when she was a teenager, have been certified gold in the U.S. The latter song has racked up about 370 million streams on Spotify.

Coming into 2022, she’s just been nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for outstanding breakthrough media artist.

A U.S. tour that’s been long in the works begins March 7 in Atlanta and includes appearances at the Coachella festival in California April 16 and 23.

Ulven was featured in Variety‘s Young Hollywood issue last year, where she said, “I never say I’m a queer icon, but now that I’m aware of that role, I’m embracing it,” Ulven says. The Finneas-co-produced leadoff single from her 2021 album , “Seratonin,” was notably candid about mental health issues, but she said at the time that she expected her first U.S. tour in 2022 to be a jubilant affair. “If people relate to a song like ‘Summer Depression,’ I want to tell them you’ll be OK, because the same person who felt those things is now happy.”

“If I Could Make It Go Red” got a considerable boost among a different demographic when Taylor Swift gave it an unsolicited plug. Ulven was happy for the plug: “That was insane when that happened,” she told Variety. “Like, I cried for an hour. I was so drunk, because I was having my album release party and we’ve talked a little bit after that as well. And I just think she’s an incredible artist and I’m such a huge fan of her.”

Variety predicted greater commercial success for Girl in Red, writing at the end of 2021, “It’s not difficult to see why Taylor Swift gave the album a rare social media endorsement this spring; the line from ‘Red’ to Girl in Red is recognizable, even if Ulven rocks out a bit more. The way she shifts from pop-punkiness to pure loveliness should attract anyone who’s worn out their Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish records, too, for how deftly she threads the needle between insolence and vulnerability.”

Variety also hosted a “Live From My Den” acoustic performance by (and video interview with) Girl in Red last year; watch it here.

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