Now 25, Ray traces her path from teen pop sensation to a young woman navigating love, loss, and most importantly, growth, against a backdrop of undeniably catchy melodies.
Resilience becomes the album’s credo in the titular track, with Ray’s “I may never be Joni / but singing my truth is holy” establishing the diaristic nature of the songs to follow. With her heart proudly on her sleeve, she spills deeply personal, relatable stories touching on everything from toxic relationships to the pitfalls of success. Choosing to “put a positive spin / On it,” she revels in disguising the darker themes her songs grapple with by wrapping them in silky vocals and upbeat melodies; the nonchalance of “Don’t Date the Teenager” hides a dark secret, while earworm “Heartbreak Baby” deals with the grief of a breakup.
A standout track is “Dear Seventeen,” a catch-up with her teen self with nods to Taylor Swift, both lyrically (“You’re still obsessed with Taylor”) and sonically. Perhaps deliberately, its guitar-driven sound is more reminiscent of Ray’s older work. Ray leaves the album’s most hopeful track for the very end, enlisting Maisie Peters and Carol Ades to sing “America Forever,” a bright-eyed ode to LA and her own personal version of the American dream.
While Positive Spin’s strength lies in Ray’s flair for storytelling, the album is not without its weaknesses. At times its sound seems flat and overproduced, distracting from her singing with overly polished, vacuous beats. Without paying attention to the lyrics, it would be easy to dismiss this as just another bloodless pop record destined to feature on the soundtrack of a made-for-streaming rom-com, but that would be a disservice to Ray, who is really coming into her own as a songwriter.
Melancholy and hopeful in equal measures, Positive Spin succeeds in its mission to look on the bright side of life, reminding the listener that growing pains are a normal part of life – it’s all about how you look at it.
