Growth, time, and confidence are just some of the themes explored on Gretta Ray’s highly anticipated sophomore album, “Positive Spin” (out now via EMI Australia). After taking some time in-between her debut record “Begin To Look Around”, the Australian singer-songwriter began to look inwards with a new perspective. From this time, and from touring the country on her sold out headline tour, she’s found a confident shift in her storytelling. Twelve songs ended up forming this record, and in these tracks she is the most vulnerable and honest we’ve heard her yet, while simultaneously being the most playful and confident too. 

While sitting down ahead of the album release, Gretta ponders “I think that “Begin To Look Around” is the big sister, and “Positive Spin” is the fun, sassy, but really grounding, carefree, younger sister.” as she describes the two bodies of work. ““Begin To Look Around” feels everything very deeply, and while “Positive Spin” feels things deeply too, it also kind of just says it like it is”. And she’s right, there is a directness to her songwriting on this record where she does just tell it like it is, and it makes for some incredibly special moments like the confessional “Don’t The Teenager”, the diary-esque “Dear Seventeen”, and the retrospective “Loving Somebody”. On the other end of the spectrum she gets sassy on “Upgraded”, romantic on “Nobody Here”, and uses the metaphor of a sponge on “You’ve Already Won”. There’s truly a moment for everyone on the record as she just opens her diary and gives you her unfiltered all.

Exploring the themes of “Positive Spin”, Gretta and I went back to our first chat around her debut album, and went from there. We discussed lyrics, comparisons, influences, and found out that this record was a lot more connected to her debut thematically than she even realised. Check out the full chat BELOW;

THOMAS BLEACH: I was looking back at our chat around the release of “Begin To Look Around” and I loved my opening question, so I wanted to ask you the same question for this record. “Positive Spin” feels like a direct response to your debut album and feels very introspective and hopeful. So when you listen back to this record in its entirety, what emotions and thoughts come to you?

GRETTA RAY: It’s very interesting that you say that actually, in terms of “Positive Spin” being a response to “Begin To Look Around”, as I wouldn’t necessarily say that was the intent. I’ve seen a few people say “Positive Spin” is like “Begin To Look Around”’s big sister. Whereas in my mind, I think that “Begin To Look Around” is the big sister, and “Positive Spin” is the fun, sassy, but really grounding, carefree, younger sister. Which kind of reminds me of my little sister, in terms of the energy she brings into my life. So that’s kind of how I perceive the records and the relationship between the two of them. 

“Begin To Look Around” feels everything very deeply, and while “Positive Spin” feels things deeply too, it also kind of just says it like it is. It’s a pretty heavy album to be honest, which is interesting because it’s such a light, and bright record aesthetically. I feel like with both of these albums, right around the time they’ve come out into the world, I’ve been moving through the emotions that I need the album to kind of heal, if that makes sense.

So now when I listen to the title track “Positive Spin”, I’m like, “what was I talking about?”, but in a way that I remember what I was talking about, but I still really need to hear that advice now. I’m kind of letting “Positive Spin” guide me at the moment as I’m very consumed by the universe of it right now

TB: Opening track, and title track “Positive Spin” opens the record with a blurry of synths and production that reminds me of “Begin To Look Around”. It feels like the portal track that ties these records together and welcomes the listener into the new world. Do you look at this track in that way?

GR: It definitely was intended to bring the listener into the universe of the album. When I went into that writing session, I had the intention of writing the title track. I wanted to achieve summing up the emotions of the record that people were about to hear just to kind of set the tone for everything.

But in terms of the swell of synths and everything in the production, I really wanted that to be a nod to “Becoming”, which was the opening track on “Begin To Look Around”. That used bits and pieces of all 15 songs that made up that record, and with “Positive Spin” it’s the same thing. It’s all the different little sparkly bits from all of the songs everyone’s about to hear. 

TB: Some lyrics I loved from this song were; “Embrace a new era” and, “settle in your skin. Easily the coolest that you’ve ever been” // and “You pave the path, you walk alone”. So many cool empowering sentiments to this track. Since writing this track have you come back to these lyrics and looked at them to remind yourself of these things you’ve learnt? 

GR: It was interesting with “Positive Spin”, I continued to chip away at the lyrics for a few months after I wrote the bones of the song. I had all of the melodies in place for the most part, but getting the message across, and making sure people really understood what I was thinking about, was really important. It’s really about ageing and wanting one thing but needing to have another. Like at the beginning of the song I sing, “I wanna make a change, be known as unique. Fit the brief, make the grade, all in a day”, which represents a very chaotic mindset of like “I must win somehow, but I must do it in a unique and interesting way”. I find myself asking “would somebody take this pressure off” but we’re really putting it on ourselves. 

A lyric I love to come back to, and one that makes me emotional, is the very simple line of “you’re doing it all that you set out to do”. It’s so easy to move the goalposts and kind of not have those moments where you actually pat yourself on the back and be like, “Oh, I did the thing I have set out to do, now let’s move on to the next thing”. Often we forget to have that moment of celebrating, and instead we just go, “well now we need to get this next thing, and then this next thing”. It’s all well intended, but you can find yourself totally exhausted and feeling like you haven’t achieved anything when actually, so much has just been accomplished. You just haven’t given yourself the chance to acknowledge that. So that lyric “you’re doing it all that you set out to do” is for my eight year old self who was obsessed with writing songs every single day who would look at what I’m doing now and be like, “that’s it, that’s the thing that I wanted to do”.

TB: “Upgraded” is the most confident track on the record. And it’s self-assured, and again feels like a direct response to the things you learnt from your debut? When you wrote this, did you look back at old Gretta and think, “wow I’ve learnt so much to even be able to write this song now”?

GR: Yeah, I think so. When I wrote this song I was feeling very present. I was having a very beautiful summer in London, and I was thinking about the fact that it had often not been the case in previous years where I had been in London and either going through a breakup, or grieving a breakup, or just kind of in limbo with someone, which left me with one foot in Australia still. When I was there for this particular trip I was just thriving, I was really comfortable, and I felt very committed to being there. So I wanted to kind of capture that energy. It’s definitely quite sassy at times, but it also addresses the previous record and experiences I had, like that Paris line. 

TB: A lyric we obviously have to talk about is; “Now I’m the name you’re never escaping. Turn up your go-to radio station. Your ex lover’s indie-pop song’s playing. She’s upgrading”. This feels very pointed, and I’m here for it. 

GR: And all in a sweet little falsetto melody *laughs*. I remember writing those lyrics, and it’s so funny how especially with pop that there’s so much room to play. I definitely didn’t think about just how cutting a lyric like that could be interpreted as I was just so happy when I was writing it, and it was all about the joy of being independent in London. But maybe had this lyric been in a different kind of production, or a different song where I hadn’t let go of that experience, then maybe it would seem heavier, but to me everything in this song feels light. 

The idea for that lyric was actually born months and months beforehand. There was something in my phone notes from around the time triple j had “Begin To Look Around” as feature album, and it just read “your exe’s song on the radio station”, and then it made its way into this song in a different way. 

TB: My favourite track on the album is “Nobody Here” which tells the story of the realisation that you have feelings for someone, even though the timing isn’t the most ideal in your head. Can you explain the creative process and the journey behind this track?

GR: I’m so happy you like this one! “Nobody Here” is the oldest song on “Positive Spin”, and I wrote it in London with my friend Omri Dahan. I had found myself annoyingly attached to a new person in my life that I had tried very hard to not become attached to, and the whole one foot in Australia thing while in London was happening again. So I kind of spoke to Omri about how I was feeling, and It was a really rewarding session in the fact that he’s so good with pop melodies, and I was still learning so much. We only spent like two days on it before it was pretty fully written. It very quickly became the song I would listen to associate with how I was feeling at the time. I really wanted the production of this song to sound like the feeling when you have a very dramatic and overwhelming crush on someone. I really wanted to reference the lushness of MUNA songs, and reference Imogen Heap songs with the vocal swell at the beginning of the song. 

I really think that track 3 is such an important track on an album, because this track will convince people to stay. Track two has to blow people away, but track three has to keep people hooked in for the story in the journey of the album. And that’s why I placed “Nobody Here” there because I think there’s lots of things in it that are very “me”, just like all of the layers and how much room there is, and how many different melodies and sections there are. There’s just a lot going on. It’s very colorful. 

TB: The lyrics “Nobody here could draw me in, in an instant. Nobody here could leave me hanging on every word” are just so romantic. And I feel like that’s a growth from “Begin To Look Around” in itself.

GR: To me, “Nobody Here” is such a, “on your own song”, because it just sounds like the chaos of a crush unfolding in your mind, and it’s just your private little feeling. Like the bridge where I’m saying “I’ll see myself out, take myself home now”, is like me leaving this party situation but then going straight back into the headspace of “I wonder whether you’ll ever think about me”. I honestly loved making this song. I can’t wait to sing it on tour. It’s gonna be so fun.

TB: “Dear Seventeen” is a really unique song because it’s ultimately a song I think you genuinely needed to write for yourself, and to commemorate the journey so far. What do you genuinely think your 17 year old self’s biggest takeaway would be if you were able to go back and play this song to them?

GR: I mean that’s such an interesting question because I want to say the second verse obviously, because that’s kind of where you have the more vulnerable and slightly uncomfortable lyrics. But I also think my 17 year old self would just love hearing that I’d get to tour the states and play arenas.

I have a journal entry from when I was 17, when I found out that Missy Higgins had heard my first EP, and the whole entry is in caps *laughs*.  So you have to understand, those kinds of things sent me crazy excited because it was just my biggest dreams becoming reality. So I kind of feel like the second verse would be a lot for 17 year old me to wrap her head around. But I think that the sheer joy and excitement about the idea of being able to do this for a living like she’d always wanted would definitely be the takeaway for sure.

TB: The instrumental on “The Cool Boy” – Let’s talk about it. It feels like such a moment . And especially with the live show in mind. What inspired that production decision and to head in this direction as it’s the only solo of its kind on the record? 

GR: I think there are a few things that probably inspired that instrumental section. I think that I recognized that maybe moments like that were lacking on the record, and I like to look at the body of work I’m making and be like, “okay, what’s missing? What haven’t we done here?”. And that’s always the thing with my work’s, there’s not a lot of space left because I’ve said everything. 

There’s this really great song by Carol Ades who I am constantly referencing throughout this campaign because she’s such an influence of mine. She has a song called “26”, and it’s very gentle, beautiful, haunting and vulnerable. And then the last chorus is like, “LAAAAAAAA”, and it’s such an epic arrival. And so I feel like that also might have inspired “The Cool Boy” a bit. 

TB: “You’ve Already Won” is sonically one of the most surprising songs on the album. And It also really highlights how many words you do include in your songs. I feel like the best way to describe you is that you’re the Gilmore Girls of music. Have there been times where you’ve caught yourself adding too many words, or been too conscious of it?

GR: Yeah, I definitely have thought about it, and been conscious of it. There’s obviously things I look back on now in my older work and go “if I wrote that today, I would have never written the “Radio Silence” bridge that way”. I remember going into battle for the “Radio Silence” bridge. But I mean, that is what it was meant to be. I love singing that bridge live now. Like I wouldn’t do anything about it. But I know that with what I’ve learned now about songwriting, it probably wouldn’t be in my instinct to do that.

I like that we have another record that’s very full, and especially with a song like “You’ve Already Won”. That song is just me having little list’s and little poems, and it’s very busy and it kind of sounds like a rap in a way. I think that the idea of the song is trying to soak all of those things up, and the only moment where there’s some kind of level pacing is the chorus where I’m saying “breathe it in, soak it up”. 

TB: You are heading out on a big tour appropriately titled “The Big Pop Show” in September. Aesthetically and from a production standpoint – what are you dreaming up? Are we getting a giant disco ball? A yellow set? 

GR: I can’t really tell much at this point because we’re still kind of planning it. I had so much fun on the “Begin To Look Around Tour”, and now that I’ve learned that’s how my audiences respond to my pop music, I think I’m just going to lean further into that fun. And I mean, there’s a little bit more cheekiness on this record, which always makes for really fun moments when fans scream lyrics. And, I can tell that someone’s really relating to what I’m saying with the knowing looks we exchange. Like, that’s just my favorite thing ever, and I really cannot wait for those moments. 

TB: Let’s play a quick game of rapid fire questions. Are you ready? 

GR: Yes, let’s do it!

TB: The emoji that best describes my new album ‘Positive Spin’ is…

GR: The lemon or the yellow heart.

TB: The song that nearly didn’t make the album was…

GR: “You’ve Already Won”.

TB: The lyric that makes me giggle on this album is…

GR: Just all of “Don’t Date The Teenager” probably. 

TB: The song that went through the most versions to get it to where it is now was…

GR: “Light On”.

TB: The first song I’d want you to show your friends from my album would be…

GR: “Dear Seventeen”!

“Positive Spin” is out now!

Gretta Ray “The Big Pop Show” Australian Tour

Friday 15 September – Princess Theatre, Brisbane

Saturday 16 September – Metro Theatre, Sydney

Friday 22 September – Northcote Theatre, Melbourne

Saturday 23 September – The Astor Theatre, Perth

Friday 29 September – Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide

Sunday 1 October – Northcote Theatre, Melbourne *U18’s Matinee*