10 Singers Who Look Nothing Like Their Voice

Top-10 Singers Who Look Nothing Like Their Voice

Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the top ten singers who look completely different from the way their voice sounds on record.

#10: Björk

Björk may appear to be relatively unassuming, but over the course of nearly five decades, she has become one of music’s most iconic creative forces. Her voice is one that can take many forms, from the soft and delicate to the truly manic and chaotic. Regarded as one of the premier vocal talents of her generation, Björk truly decided to flex her muscles by releasing “Medúlla”, an album that was created entirely with her voice. Like most of her releases, it was a critical success and earned her two Grammy nominations. Despite being in the business since 1976, she has shown no signs of slowing down.

#9: Tom Waits

Tom Waits is a man of many voices. Yet, he still manages to throw people for a loop every time a first-time listener hears him. The theatrical side of Waits’ performances and even his interviews is designed to draw people in, but when he opens his mouth, he is capable of creating sounds that don’t even seem human. From his early days as the wine-addled jazz singer to the more experimental music of his later years, Tom Waits is one of the great idiosyncratic artists of the last fifty years. Need any more proof? Go listen to his album “Bone Machine.”

#8: Jelly Roll

One look at Jelly Roll is enough to make a few assumptions about what you’re about to hear. But most of the time, those predictions will turn out to be totally wrong. Jelly Roll is a true genre-bending artist, one who seamlessly pivots from country to rap and rock. He initially tried to make his mark on the music industry as a straight-up rapper, but eventually found his success when he blurred the lines and dipped into country music. His voice is one that is as unique as can be within the contemporary music world.

#7: Michael McDonald

Michael McDonald has made his mark on pop music in many different ways. He was a member of Steely Dan, achieved huge success with the Doobie Brothers, and had a prolific solo career. The one constant that they all share? McDonald’s powerhouse voice. He might look like a very normal dude who you wouldn’t even notice if you passed them on the street, but he has one of the great soul voices of his era. McDonald’s success wasn’t an accident, and though he deserves huge credit as a songwriter, it’s that golden voice that really brought it all home!

#6: Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan may have eventually grown into his voice, but when he first burst onto the scene in his early 20s, people were genuinely shocked to hear him sing. Forget about the wisdom that comes through in his lyrics, but he seemed to enter adulthood with the voice of an old man. People like to rag on Bob for having a voice that’s a little rough around the edges, but he’s not trying to be Aretha Franklin. We’re sure he left more than a few people’s jaws on the floor when he first arrived in Greenwich Village back in the early '60s. He has truly maximised his voice’s potential in every possible way - utilising it to form a sound that is totally his own.

#5: Kate Bush

Kate Bush, at her core, is all about the performance. She’s a singer who will inhabit different characters if a song calls for it, putting on accents and changing her entire tone when it’s needed. She wrote some of her biggest hits before she had even turned 20. After her debut album “The Kick Inside” was released, she would continue to shock people with her vocal power, one release after another. If we had to sum Kate Bush’s voice up in one word, it would be ‘expressive’. When it comes to Kate Bush, everything from her facial expressions to her physical movement is part of the show… and when she approaches the mic, you just never can be fully certain of what to expect.

#4: Tiny Tim

Tiny Tim is certainly not as tiny as his name would suggest. In many ways, he’s the gold standard for singers who sound nothing like you’d expect. He first came up in the same New York scene that brought us Bob Dylan, and upon achieving a breakthrough hit with his song “Tiptoe Through the Tulips,” his place in the history of oddball, novelty music was sealed forever. Tiny Tim has a falsetto that would put most singers to shame. To this day, the fact that a man who looks like that can produce that sound is one of music’s great mysteries.

#3: Roy Orbison

Roy Orbison truly had rock and roll’s golden voice. Though his pompadoured hair made him look pretty similar to most of the other singers who were making waves in his era, when Roy opened his mouth, it was different. While many other performers preferred to make their presence known on stage with theatrical movement, Orbison would stay unusually still and let his voice do its thing. There’s a reason why he was able to have such huge success in the early 1960s and then pull off an all-time great career comeback in the late 80s. A truly unique presence in music history.

#2: Bobby Caldwell

Bobby Caldwell is best known for his iconic hit “What You Won’t Do For Love” and for having a voice that has been throwing people for a loop for decades. People tend to picture someone entirely different when they first hear Caldwell sing. Yet, that beautiful voice is coming from the most unlikely of places. There are YouTube reaction videos where people react to seeing Caldwell for the first time, and the result is always one of surprise. There’s no denying that he had one of the most perfect soul voices of the late 70s and 80s.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

Michael Jackson

A Timeless Voice That Remains Entirely Unique

Andrea Bocelli

Don’t Let His Everyman Appearance Fool You

Barry White

The Most Impossibly Smooth Voice in Music

Joe Cocker

Emotionally Intense Singing at Its Very Finest

Teddy Swims

The Rich Tenor Voice We Simply Did Not See Coming

#1: Susan Boyle

Susan Boyle managed to capture the imagination of the entire world when she stepped in front of the judges on “Britain’s Got Talent.” People are often quick to make assumptions when it comes to talent shows, but little did we know that Boyle was about to blow our minds. She ended up winning the contest outright, surging through each stage of the show with her perfect operatic voice. As soon as the public heard her for the first time, the result of that season was a foregone conclusion. To say that she was a global sensation would be putting it lightly. Boyle stands as proof that you should never judge a book by its cover.

But which singer left you completely and utterly shocked when you first heard them open their mouths? Let us know in the comments below.