2015–2019: SoundCloud and EPs After getting a
Blue Yeti microphone from her father in 2015, She stopped attending guitar lessons after six months once her teacher refused to acknowledge her interest in songwriting and producing. Using the new moniker, she published her debut single "I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend" on SoundCloud in November 2016, where it amassed 5 thousand streams within five months. Following the single's feature on the Norwegian music website
NRK Urørt, "I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend" amassed thousands of streams and gained Ulven a large online following. in September 2019|alt= 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. "I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend" was listed at number 9 on
The New York Times list of "The 68 Best Songs of 2018" and won Untouched of the Year at the
2018 P3 Gull Awards. Ulven embarked on her first North American tour supporting
Conan Gray 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 company
AWAL. She embarked on her first international headlining "World in Red" tour in September 2019, performing in cities such as Dublin and San Francisco.
2020–2023: If I Could Make It Go Quiet In December 2019, Ulven signed a worldwide recording contract with British music company
AWAL. In a rare phenomenon for most new label signees, her entire existing discography, which had all originally been
self-released, was subsequently registered under this label on all digital music platforms. Ulven appeared on the front cover of both
Gay Times and
Dork in December 2019, as well as the cover of
NME in January 2020. Ulven was nominated for the
Newcomer of the Year award and, as a result, the Gramo scholarship at the
2020 Spellemannprisen. In mid 2020, girl in red became a popular symbol of queer identification on the online platform
TikTok, 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. 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. 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 on a 80x80 cm canvas titled
The Antizero. The artist was not credited in the physical release. In 2022, Ulven signed to
Irving Azoff's PRO, Global Music Rights (GMR). In February 2022, Ulven signed a record deal with
Columbia Records, following the success of
If I Could Make It Go Quiet. The label confirmed the signing to American media company
Variety. At the
2022 Spellemannprisen, girl in red was named
Spellemann of the Year, while
If I Could Make It Go Quiet won Release of the Year and Songwriter of the Year. On 14 October, she released her latest single, "October Passed Me By", which is a sequel to "We Fell in Love in October". Ulven was an opening act on multiple shows of the U.S. leg of
Taylor Swift's
The Eras Tour (2023).
2024–present: ''I'm Doing It Again Baby!'' Ulven released her second studio album, ''
I'm Doing It Again Baby!'', on 12 April 2024. The album was supported by three singles: "
Too Much" in February 2024, "Doing It Again Baby" in March 2024, and "
You Need Me Now?" with
Sabrina Carpenter, also in March. To support the album, Ulven performed on the
Doing It Again Tour between April and October of 2024. On 28 February 2025, Ulven released the song "Confession", a stripped-back guitar ballad that was described by
NME as "reminiscent of her lo-fi earlier work". In June, she performed as an opener for the first night of
BST Hyde Park 2025. Ulven is set to star as the lead character, Maja, in the film
Low Expectations. Produced by
Maipo Film and directed by Eivind Landsvik, == Artistry and influences ==