The track Iβm recommending is the Postmodern Jukebox cover of Blackstreetβs βNo Diggityβ featuring Ariana Savalas on vocals.
For your requirements
popular song
Yes - the original got a ton of airplay on MTV and radio in the early 90s
from the 80s or 90s
Yes
hard rock or metal version
Nope
female vocalist
Yes
Link:
If Savalas sounds familiar, her dad is the actor Telly Savalas.
Hailstorm doing Daft Punkβs Get Lucky is one of my favorite songs of all time.
Nirvana version of "where did you sleep last night"
Boys of Summer - The Ataris
Don Henley's 1984 version is nice, but this early 00s power pop version hits so good.
Placebo's version of Running up that Hill is the definitive version. Fight me.
Honestly, most anything by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, a pop punk band I used to listen to a lot in the oughts that strictly performs covers. Favs include βMy Boyfriends Backβ βStand By Your Manβ and βSloop John Bβ
Johnny Cash's version of Hurt https://open.spotify.com/track/28cnXtME493VX9NOw9cIUh
AWOL nations got a cover album a couple years ago. There is at least one Abba song on it.
Chris Cornell did a couple of covers I cant get enough of. Acoustic Nothing Compares to you.
And a cover/mashup of Metallica's Ones lyrics to U2s One Lyrics which is amazing.
I follow a guy called Leo Morachioli who does metal covers of popular songs. I really enjoy Leo's version of toss a coin to your witcher and also his cover over final countdown. His videos are rad.
Lourdes all along the watchtower is good
Alien Ant Farm did a fun cover of Smooth Criminal is good too
Toto - Africa (metal cover by Leo Moracchioli feat. Rabea & Hannah)
This cover should meet just about all of your criteria, but it's already a few years old.
Sultans of Swing (metal cover by Leo Moracchioli feat. Mary Spender)
Cover - check
Popular song - check
From 80s or 90s - check
Redone into metal - check
Female vocalist - check!
Bonus song: Manhattan Skyline by Ihsahn feat. Einar Solberg
It's not harder than the original, but Ihsahn and Einar are some of the most influential metal musicians out there
Marilyn Manson's cover of Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics is a personal favorite
Sleep Theory - Bye Bye Bye by NSYNC.
Bad Wolves - Zombie by The Cranberries.
Daughtry - Separate Ways by Journey.
5 Finger Death Punch - Bad Company by Bad Company.
All that Remains - The Thunder Rolls by Garth Brooks.
Disturbed - The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel.
Disturbed - Land of Confusion by Genesis.
Alien Ant Farm - Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson.
A Day To Remember - Since U Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson.
Electric Callboy - Everytime We Touch by Cascada.
Framing Handly - Lollipop by Lil Wayne.
Our Last Night - Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush.
There's definitely more, but those are some that I've enjoyed, sorry no I females in the list though, except a collab on Separate Ways.
Hurt by Johnny Cash
Β
Edit to add: Apparently bands like to cover This Must be the Place.
Republica's cover of Gary Numan - Are Friends Electric
Which also Dead Weather did I think
Love this one: House of the Rising Sun - Lauren O'Connell
Pomplamoose - Pumped Up Kicks/Radiohead's Creep mashup comes to mind for me. Creep 'Everything in it's right place'* which was recorded in the 90s
The standouts for me are A Perfect Circle doing covers of People are People by Depeche Mode and Peace, Love, and Understanding by Brinsley Schwarz.
Wind Rose - Diggy Diggy Hole
The band Tragedy started out as a heavy metal BeeGees cover band, I believe, but expanded to do hard rock covers of disco, pop, and adult contemporary staples. I'm not a big Abba fan but I love every one of this band's covers and their cover of Madonna's Borderline.
I like Denzel Curry's cover of Bulls on Parade.
I misread the original post. This one isn't female but it is a (prog) metal cover of Take on Me (A-Ha) by the band Leprous
https://youtu.be/Te2MR6j5Qhg?is=pwBpxHfcAFXb5aiP
The whole channel is just great covers being made on the fly so I'm sure there's some stuff in there you'd enjoy
Maybe not what you are looking for, but unironically entertaining on several levels (at least to me)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWWBeaqdBas
Spice Girls - Wannabe (in the style of System Of A Down) feat. βͺ@macglockyβ¬
I wanna be like you (jungle book) by psychedelic porn crumpets. Give it a try, it's good.
Thunderstruck by Walk Off the Earth. Female vocalist, a wild twist on instuments that just seems to work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RnGkIxhFGU
I know it's probably not what you're asking for but there's an album where a bunch of Japanese anime voice actresses did covers for popular songs from the 80s and 90s. It called Voice Actresses Legendary Punk Songs Collection and here's a playlist that has most of the songs (one of them is unavailable for some reason).
Outside of that, I mostly only know bands who have covers of video game music (and some movies) from the 80s and 90s. If you are counting those, here are some examples of them:
Lighting Strikes Again and Metal Squad from Thunder Force IV by SSH. SSH is known for metal covers of old video game music, so this is just one example of his music.
Cranial Syphon by Armcannon, which is a cover of some song from Metroid but I'm not familiar with that game so I don't know what it is exactly. On top of covers for other video game music, they also have stuff like the Ghostbuster's theme.
Kraid by Metroid Metal, which is obviously another metroid song (possibly the same one). There music was a bit hard to find on YouTube, I've forgotten where I first heard their music before but Youtube might not be the best platform to find the rest of their music.
Battle Scene from Final fantasy by The Black Mages. While they are currently disbanded, they were known for rock/metal covers of music from the Final Fantasy games (which makes sense given that the band was created by Nobuo Uematsu himself). They did briefly rebrand as "Earthbound Papas" for one album because not only did they want to cover more than just the Final Fantasy games but they also wanted to branch out to more genres.
I know for sure that there are some that I'm forgetting and there's also some that I don't feel like looking for examples for (mainly artists who've covered the music from the 90s era Touhou games). If asked, I may do through and provide them but I think I've provided more than enough already.
Original by David Bowie 1977.
motΓΆrhead recorded the cover version while recording their last album in 2015.
Generally I would say I like the music of Bowie better than motΓΆrhead, but in this case, their cover of his song is better than the original.
Hurt - Johnny Cash
Joe Jacksons cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Oh, Well" rocks! The Ramones cover of the old 1960's Spiderman TV theme song was excellent! Nancy Griffith's cover of "Tecumseh Valley" by Townes Van Zandt always leaves a lump in my throat.
Neither metal nor female singer, but this is one of the best covers ever.
Puddle of Mud has a nice Nirvana cover
My favorite is in the opposite direction - Porter Robinson covering Fontaines DC "favorite" in a 90s pop rock style. Such a good version of such a good song, and it's worth reading the interview where he talks about recording it.
Tweeter and the Monkey Man - The Headstones
I love Shinedown's cover of Simple Man.
The A.V. Club used to do a series where bands would come on and choose from a list of songs to cover. As the season goes on, the list shrinks and the covers get more exotic. You can search "av undercover" on YouTube to watch through the back catalog of old seasons for some pretty great covers. I don't think they do it anymore, but it ran for several years.
I know there's a whole anti cars movement but I think it's a pretty good cover
Right round by Dope.
Absolute banger just no female singer.
Could have a look through the punk goes pop albums too there's some good stuff in there
Anything by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
The Protomen - The Cover Up
I really like this cover of Dead Man's Party
And for some Metal, as you requested, Everytime We Touch
Covers of popular songs
Okay...
from the 80s or 90s
...ah, fuck. Yeah, the original is from 2013 π
redone today into a hard rock or metal version.
Check!
Bonus if it's a female vocalist.
Well, 2 out of 3 is good enough: Take Me to Church by The Agonist
Maybe sorrrttttt of the opposite of your "especially", but:
Do They Owe Us A Living? by Croy and the Boys, which is a country cover of the 70s punk song by Crass.
Absolutely love this song.
If you want covers better than originals, Johnny Cash is your man. His 'America 1-4' albums are full of them.
(Embrace the chaos of my picks)
Jack Johnson covered Badfish by sublime for a tribute album. I'm not really familiar with his music, but damn his version is better than the original to me.
And iron and wine's cover of waiting on a Superman by the flaming lips. It's a heartbreaking song in his whisper-singing.
For a different feel, Tool's cover of No Quarter.
Oh, I'm so bookmarking this discussi.
The Shrek 2 'fairy godmother' cover of I Need a Hero is far more enjoyable than the original one imo.
Others that come to mind have already been listed here..
GWAR did a cover of Pink Pony Club
It's infinitely better to the original. I known it's a new song. I don't care.
Country roads.
The Replicants had a self-titled album of covers in 1995 and they are all killer rock versions. Check it out. No female singer though. They do a great cover of Cinnamon Girl by Neil Young.
The style is alt pop rock bullshit, so it might not be your bag, but Weezer has a whole album of covers from that era, and I am absolutely enamored with that album, the "teal" album.
Also featuring this banger of a music video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk5Dwg5zm2U (Africa)
How do you feel about ska?
This retired the whole genre:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDyb_alTkMQ
Sid Vicious's version of I Did It My Way. I think originally from the 1980s.
Screaming Females have a cover of Shake It off that absolutely fucks: https://youtu.be/Zm1-bVYio1k
Joint State (South African rock band) covering Enjoy the Silence by Depeche Mode.
Careless Whisper in Japanese i know it screams AI, but its actually old cover
Archenemy made a whole album of coversin metal, their vocalist is a woman (Alissa White-Gluz). It includes cover of bands like: Tears of Fear, Scorpions, Judas Priest, Europe and Manowar.
Super Guitar Bros. featuring Dan Avidan - Kiss From A Rose
Radio goo goo by electric Six. Is danger danger High Voltage!
Jeff Buckley's cover of Leonard Cohen/John Cale's Hallelujah is the definitive version.
Doesn't quite fit the requirements perfectly but I love Ella Red's soft cover of MCR's I'm not okay (I promise).
Maphra
Perfect Strangers by Yob
Straight Up by Mares of Thrace (this is what you're looking for)
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