Singers with Unique Voices: Tim Atlas (The Unique Voices Club #22)

Every Friday, I write a post about singers with unique voices not commonly heard in mainstream music in an effort to educate emerging artists and music lovers and inspire them to embrace their own quirks. This week I'm writing on Tim Atlas.

Le Soir EP album cover (2023)

Not me binge-listening to Tim Atlas' quirky brand of neo-soul/indie RnB as I write this on a cloudy, drizzly day in my feels. There's nothing like a unique voice to cheer me up. That, and probably some candy. That aside, Tim Atlas' appearance on reality singing competitions was marked by a disrespectful montage and then a cut short at the Knockouts. But he's shown up Jordan Smith with having nearly six times the among of monthly Spotify listeners (I might write on Jordan in a later post so stay tuned).

That goes to show that you, the listener striving to be educated, are the most important piece of the puzzle. If hundreds of thousands of people love his voice and sound, without all the major label contract winning weirdiness to produce something that'll appeal to the masses, then there's no need to change if you're trying to figure out whether your differences will make sense to the human ear. There might not even be a reason for you to sign up for a competition to win a record deal, except to show the listeners who you are. And I promise you someone will love you. Like I'm a fan of Tim.

Tim Atlas' music has that indie feel a la Glass Animals and Foster the People, but unlike the lead singers of those bands, his chest voice is fairly light with a slightly gritty texture and some rasp. Or he can go into his falsetto range, which is airy and buoyant. His diction does remind me of James Blunt or Passenger, with that unpolished character sound with subtle nasal and vibrato nuances. His music makes me want to surf on a beach (a la California where he's originally from) or embark on a very long road trip to a populous place like Brooklyn, where he's now based. Almost like the kind of non-American genre box music I grew up with. Even if he's branded as an RnB/neo-soul artist, I've heard him do folk covers, pop songs, and the like and every time his voice lends its special blend of emotional flavors.

As with all the indie artists I cover here, I obviously implore you to go check out more of Tim Atlas' music and if you like, subscribe so you can keep up to date with more of he puts out. A good chunk of the artists I've covered or played on the radio version of the Unique Voices Club either have huge gaps between their releases, or they're just getting back into making music again, or they haven't released anything since pre-pandemic times. Not Tim. He's been at it, songwriting, producing and making tunes for himself and other artists in spite of a sadly short run on The Voice, and he's perhaps one of the few to have appeared on the show that has been consistently creating his art and doing it outside of the societal norms of what music is supposed to sound like (like Melanie Martinez). So I encourage you, if you're strongly creatively inclined like me, to go ahead and make art too.

And that is all for this week on The Unique Voices Club. As always, participate in the revolution of artists breaking free from convention by subscribing to my Patreon, where you have the opportunity to actually suggest artists to me and each other, which I will then write about. Remember that there's power in the unconventional.

Stay educated,

Alexia