Shingai Shoniwa of the Noisettes
The UK indie rock band the Noisettes have barely registered a blip on the radar screen in the United States but they're known to Brits from their extensive touring and television appearances. On August 5 2012, the Noisettes played to a huge audience in Hyde Park in Central London in celebration of their latest album
Contact.
The front person for the Noisettes is Shingai Shoniwa, a British national of Zimbabwean descent. She's a talented vocalist and songwriter who has been compared to Chaka Kahn, Deborah Harry, Neneh Cherry, Polly Styrene, Santigold and loose-leaf binders full of other female vocalists. Rolling Stone bizarrely proclaimed, "Shoniwa is a living, breathing manifestation of the rock & roll spirit, with a voice that is equal parts Iggy Pop and Billie Holiday."
Really?
In reality Shingai Shoniwa is like none of the above performers and her musical influences are so diverse, it's a challenge to place her or her music within any neatly defined category. The Noisettes are a record company's marketing nightmare because their music is a hybrid of styles.
On the song
Scratch Your Name from their 2007 debut album,
What's the Time Mr. Wolf?, the Noisettes play with the passion and fervor of a first generation female punk band like X-Ray Spex or Essential Logic.
Never Forget from the their 2009 album,
Wild Young Hearts has more of a conventional R&B feel to it. It's a song that shares the musical territory as Sixties era blue eyed soul singers like Sandie Shaw, Dusty Springfield or Lulu.
That Girl from the Noisettes latest album,
Contact (2012) is sounds like it's straight from the Brill Building songbook as performed by early Sixties girl groups like the Ronettes, the Chiffons and the Dixie Cups.