thread for songs with alternate versions featuring completely different vocals

which is to say, everything else (is/is mostly) the same, but like two different singers wrote a vocal, one reigned supreme or whatever the story is

inspired by thinking baout things (is Matte Kudasai better than North Star or are they both pretty good?)

King Crimson - Matte Kudasai vs Daryl Hall/Robert Fripp - North Star

Desert Sessions - Nova vs Queens of the Stone Age - Avon

Talk Show - Saturday vs Stone Temple Pilots - Glide

super interested to hear any other examples, probably there is lots of this that was never recorded

also remember parts of the vh1 (music first) documentary "The Rise of Velvet Revolver" where they had randos taking a stab at completed demos before scott weiland showed up, tremendous document, imagine being matt sorum

There’s also the cover of Tame Impala’s Same Old Mistakes by Rihanna which appears to be exactly the same as the original, aside from the vocal.

The first one that springs to mind is REM's Seven Chinese Bros./Voice Of Harold, both great

Jamaica to thread....

your kisses scourge me, hyssop in your perfume

Shot By Both Sides by Magazine/Lipstick by Buzzcocks

'Hang On to Your Ego' ('Let Go of Your Ego') by the Beach Boys, which became 'I Know There's An Answer' after lovable Mike Love objected to the LSD allusions.

Brix Smith's 'Shiny Things', an 'extremely personal' song about finding your inner child, which Mark E. Smith sped up until she sounded like a chipmunk, then distorted and sang different lyrics over the top of to make The Fall's 'Bonkers in Phoenix'.

("Would all people who want vegetarian burgers go on the left
And those who want meat burgers on the right,
Car parking is available at Glastonbury Phoenix.")

Brix said that "I think he just wanted to destroy something that was special to me."

A few of these I could think of with the same backing track:

Delphine - La Fermeture Eclair and We The People - In The Past
The Parliaments - I'll Wait and Pat Lewis - I'll Wait
Marva Whitney - I Made A Mistake Because It's Only You and Hank Ballard And The Midnight Lighters - From The Love Side (the backing track is the same, but slightly different mix when they pulled it back out for Hank Ballard -- horns mixed down during the bridge, extra backing vocals, etc)

The Parliaments - I'll Wait and Pat Lewis - I'll Wait

Later re-recorded by Funkadelic as "I'll Stay".

Was Adamski's Killer not re-recorded with a new vocal?

Adrian Belew did a version of King Crimson's "Cadence and Cascade", not sure if the backing vocal is different

the Giles, Giles and Fripp song "Under the Sky" originally had vocals by Judy Dyble, but there is a version that Giles sings, and then Peter Sinfield did a version on his solo album

Those aren't different songs, though, they're the same song done by different singers (some over the same track).

Neil Young - "Western Hero" and "Train of Love".

The Beach Boys Smile era becomes complicated because the same motifs appear and disappear from various versions of different songs.

oh wait I see what you mean. "Under the Sky" though is definitely 3 different recordings

There’s “A Century of Fakers” and “A Century of Elvis” by Belle & Sebastian, the latter of which is Stuart David doing a spoken-word thing over the instrumental backing track of the former.

Two more:

Unrest - Winona Rider (XX version - Mark singing) and Unrest - Winona Rider (XY version - Bridget singing) - the version with Mark’s vocals was originally released on the Inclined Plane 7”, Bridget’s was later included on the Unrest BPM comp
Lee Dorsey - Working In The Coal Mine and Eldridge Holmes - Working In The Coal Mine (same backing track but a few additions in Eldridge Holmes’ later version — guitar in places and backing vocals)

Smiths "Money Changes Everything" / Bryan Ferry "Right Stuff" (?)

Does this topic include songs rerecorded in foreign languages? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40dvY_lBUKQ for example.

"Jet Boy, Jet Girl" has the same backing track as Plastic Bertrand´s "Ça plane pour moi"

Yes, and there's two versions of that Elton Motello "Jet Boy Jet Girl" single. An explicit one, and a VERY explicit one.

Anyway, just popped in to add the Sex Pistols "Pretty Thing" single, the original LP version which Paul Cook sang (and pretty much wrote the lyrics of), and the hit single which Steve Jones sang (and changed the middle-8 lyric to 'reply' to the original statement)

Frankie Ford "Sea Cruise" and Huey Piano Smith "Sea Cruise", basically same backing, different vocalist.

Oh, how about Eddie Cochrane? "C'Mon Everybody" and "Let's Get Together" - same backing, same vocalist, different 'title sung'

Speaking of Robert Fripp & Daryl Hall (first post), Hall was originally the vocalist on most of the songs on Fripp's Exposure. Hall's record company would only allow 3 Hall vocals on the album, so other singers replaced him. Special edition CDs many years later now have the Hall vocals as bonus tracks.

Similarly, The Glove (Robert Smith & Steve Severin) album Blue Sunshine was supposed to be all Smith vocals but his record company said no way, and his vox were replaced. The Smith tracks were included on the 2nd disc of the 2006 Deluxe Edition, labeled as "demos" (*wink*).

If I’m interpreting this correctly, what about “Sister Midnight” by Iggy Pop and “Red Money” by David Bowie. Substantially the same backing track but with much different lyrics and different vocal arrangement in each.

Happy Mondays - "Little Matchstick Owen" vs "Little Matchstick Owen's Rap" (vocals by sound engineer Mike Bleach)

The latter being possibly one of the best tracks they released imo.

New Smith vocals were included on the 2nd disc of the 2006 Deluxe Edition, labeled as "demos" (*wink*).

yeah i was going to say, he did those vocals in like 2005 or 6.

Saint Etienne demo'd "Kiss and Make Up" with Moira Lambert on vocals, released it with Donna Savage on vocals, and then re-recorded it with Sarah Cracknell on vocals.

Surprised this one hasn't been mentioned yet:

Original version w/Trent Reznor vocals, which TVT Records refused to let them release at the time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPTEbfjeGJw

Re-recorded version with Al Jourgensen on vocals:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCWordf7uLQ

When I saw Revolting Cocks in NYC in 1990, Reznor came out to sing this.

I think the OP was asking about about different melodies on top of the same track, rather than different vocal takes of the same melody (which seems a lot more common)