Janice Whaley is an American and experimental a cappella singer and songwriter from San Jose, California.
She learned to play piano as a child, and was a member of her high school marching, symphonic and jazz bands.
After high school, she studied electronic music at San Francisco State University.
Stephen Kelly of British newspaper The Guardian called The Smiths Project a "testament to just how charming, creative and arduous the modern tribute can be", and praised it as a sincere, heartfelt reinterpretation of the original Smiths catalog, saying that her "greatest achievement has been to highlight and detach the art from the artist.
as "one of the song's more successful heirs", saying that Whaley's "a cappella harmonies capture the original's eeriness.