From Taylor Swift to Warhol’s Factory, Girl In Red Reveals What Inspired Her New Album

Stephen Daw
·3 min read
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With the release of her 2021 debut album, if i could make it go quiet, alternative singer-songwriter girl in red blurred the line between contemplative songwriting and chaotic production, leaving the Norwegian artist born Marie Ulven with the challenging task of crafting an equally compelling follow-up. Yet I’m Doing It Again Baby! (out April 12 on Columbia Records) lives up to the difficult standard set for sophomore albums: Her songwriting cuts quicker to the core, while Matias Tellez’s production fuses even more influences.

Girl in red, 25, describes the album as an “elevated” version of her previous output. “It feels more creative,” she says, “more fun and more playful, and a little bit more confident. I’m not playing it safe, which is important … Everything is just getting pushed further.” She breaks down the inspirations that influenced I’m Doing It Again Baby!, from working alongside fellow pop superstars to refining her culinary tastes.

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Taylor Swift

While finishing her album in 2023, girl in red earned a coveted spot as one of the openers for Swift’s The Eras Tour. “It was like watching history being written in the moment — like, ‘I’m a part of history now,’” she recalls, still in awe. Opening five dates in June, she explains, was more than just a cool opportunity; it provided a career’s worth of educational experiences in less than a month. “I learned so much from watching Taylor’s shows and seeing how hard she works,” she recalls. “My new thing is I’ll ask myself, ‘What would Taylor do?,’ because I’m so inspired by her work ethic: ‘We’re not complaining, we’re just getting sh-t done.’”

Fine Dining

In the process of elevating her music, girl in red found that “my palate and my taste for food and drinks completely changed.” Embarking on gastronomic adventures at Michelin-star restaurants, and even studying to become a sommelier (“I have this delusion where I think I can be anything,” she jokes), the singer found herself taking on more complex topics in her music. “I think food is highly connected to everything you feel. So trying a bunch of really nice wines and nice foods gave me more depth to work with in production,” she explains. “I know that sounds really f–king pretentious, but it’s true!”

1960s New York

On the final track of the album, “*****,” girl in red pines for the art scene of 1960s Lower Manhattan, specifically Andy Warhol’s iconic studio The Factory: “Six out of six, I never miss, you’ve got to be delusional to be in the biz at The Factory,” she sings. The artist says reading Patti Smith’s memoir, Just Kids, introduced her to the scene’s history and made her immediately yearn for the “electric” times she wasn’t alive for. “I just feel like we’re missing that energy now,” she says. “With Studio 54 and The Factory and all these amazing artists working together to produce great art — it’s just so cool. I wish we had more of that today.”

Cartier Watches

“I had never thought about watches in my entire life,” Ulven says with a laugh. But when her longtime collaborator Matias Tellez started explaining his love of timepieces, the singer says she adopted the same obsession. She soon developed a specific infatuation with Cartier’s brand of stylish wristwear, and convinced Tellez to buy matching engraved gold watches to commemorate the album’s release. “It’s sort of about manifesting,” she says. “All these iconic people have worn these Cartier watches, and there’s something about wanting to wear something that iconic people wore.”

A version of this story originally appeared in the March 2, 2024, issue of Billboard.

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