The 21st century practice of pop musicianship feels synonymous with celebrity. It makes sense: thread your lyrics and musicianship with gentle details from the life that your fans can see that invites intrigue and, hopefully after that, genuine appreciation of your work. I’m not immune to it: I want to hear the Ariana Grandes and Lordes of the world make sense of their extraordinary lives. Plus, when they do it right, it feels like you’re in the passenger seat with your idol. When they do it wrong, however, it feels like a clunky diary entry set to what can only ostensibly be called music.
It’s these flops that send me back to the pop of idols like Laura Branigan or Taylor Dayne, idols whose come-ups relied not on the feedback loop between celebrity gossip and musical authenticity but on a good hook and some luck. Tiffany’s ’80s mall tour comes to mind as one gimmick that could only have worked at the time, but even then, it was far from a guaranteed success. LA-based indie-pop songwriter Sedona looks back at these idols for inspiration, and it shows. On her debut album, Getting Into Heaven, her technicolor hooks and bright vocals sound like pop music you’d find in the universe of Steel Magnolias, endearing primarily for its sincerity.
Since launching the project in 2018, Sedona has undergone a few iterations, but the backbone is always the same. Sedona is Rachel Stewart’s stage name and alter ego, and through it, she’s been able to dress her feelings up in larger-than-life outfits inspired by the likes of the Wilson sisters, Stevie Nicks, Madonna, and more. For most of Sedona’s history, she’s released songs one by one, trying on new aesthetics and moods with relative ease—see the groovy synthetics of 2019’s “More Love,” or the affronting aughts rock of 2021’s “Sharkbite.”
The vintage inspiration is there without sinking into pastiche, thanks to Sedona’s magnetic vocals. Her lyrical content is timeless; nothing she sings puts her in a specific era, but it’s often tame enough to fit 20th-century radio standards. No matter how the song is dressed, Sedona is the clear star, delivering each song with sincere feeling and healthy clarity. Her guitar tones are straightforward, often edgeless with just a little slack, harkening a time before pop and punk ever converged. Some might call her methods obvious, but I prefer “congruous.” Without the productive and performative elements aligning as they do, Sedona’s music would be too vibe-based to achieve coherence. Her songs fill the air without obstruction, letting her charisma shine through.
Getting Into Heaven is full of that shine. “The Culprit” is folk-rock brilliance with forlorn strings and soft guitar, delivered with accusatory resignation: “You were the culprit / You broke into my heart / You almost stole it / But I put the fire out.” Sedona mixes her metaphors and retains her West Coast accent, giving the song a specific humanity while avoiding the pitfalls of put-ons. “Best Kept Secret” is a pastoral dedicated to the fleeting moments of slowing down and sharing our love, tracked over pedal steel and acoustic guitar. She sings “you’re the best kept secret in my life” with the urgency of a singalong, but don’t mistake it for an alt-country pivot: Sedona is still all about bold hooks and pop melodies.
“When An Old Flame Flickers” is just her and a guitar, tracking a hymn for love and loss that lets her broad vocal range and passion for classic melodies flourish. It could be mistaken for an easy listening hit from 50 years ago, or even a standard from 30 years before that, because Sedona has a knack for making her songs sound all too familiar. Getting Into Heaven balances the introspective songs with a few kiss-offs as she works through routine exasperations with power and a smirk. “Underneath” has a pop sensibility closer to Sheryl Crow than any of her previous singles, and her band sounds like a bubbly, color theory-era Soccer Mommy. But Sedona’s performance doesn’t have a conversational tone so much as a declarative one; her frustrations are unspecified but recognizable and time-worn.
“She’s So Pretty,” featuring fellow indie phenom Claud, is similarly direct but rougher. Sedona opens, “You want low risk, high reward / that’s not how it works / You gotta give to get what you need / Instead of making promises you can’t keep.” It’s somewhat understated but blows up like a Bully chorus, with lyrics as earnest as a Miley Cyrus hit. It has the sass of a bubblegrunge number, and a sun-kissed airiness in the singing that keeps the song fun. It’s reminiscent of the camaraderie of a beauty shop, a place where women across generations share bits of wisdom and good humor with each other as a show of shared strength.
Much of Getting Into Heaven touches on Sedona’s long-term fascination with the brilliances and struggles of her own womanhood and how it might map the womanhoods of others. You can see it in the lineage of influence from which she draws: a little Gwen Stefani here, a little Bonnie Raitt there. Through painting by numbers with foundational pop styles, Sedona makes obvious what allows her to stand out: a voice that exudes ease and confidence. Her accompanying videos exhibit a larger-than-life indie starlet who isn’t afraid to look a little tacky.
More often than not, this feels like men’s domain. Indie phenoms like Dent May and Alex Cameron play with kitsch to put forth both emotion and humor with a bent sincerity. Sedona’s music sounds, in some ways, like the kind of vintage pop you’d hear in the drugstore: dated and unserious but, once you dig in, you realize there’s more to the melody than meets the ear—that there’s a kind of infectious charisma that comes with redeploying the aesthetics of the recent past. Getting Into Heaven is an homage to the everyday, in everything from its effervescent production to its veiled existentialism. It isn’t groundbreaking, but it’s not trying to be. Its unwavering sincerity is disarming, doing what pop does best: Entreating the listener to let go of all pretense. Let the music take you where it may.
Devon Chodzin is a Pittsburgh-based critic and urban planner with bylines at Aquarium Drunkard, Stereogum, Bandcamp Daily and more. He can be found on social media, sometimes.
