The track I’m recommending is the Postmodern Jukebox cover of Blackstreet’s “No Diggity” 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.
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.
Nirvana version of "where did you sleep last night"
Hailstorm doing Daft Punk’s Get Lucky is one of my favorite songs of all time.
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.
Hurt - Johnny Cash
Boys of Summer - The Ataris
Don Henley's 1984 version is nice, but this early 00s power pop version hits so good.
Johnny Cash's version of Hurt https://open.spotify.com/track/28cnXtME493VX9NOw9cIUh
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 “My Boyfriends Back” “Stand By Your Man” and “Sloop John B”
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
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
I never found a metal rendition of a 'softer' song that's better than the original so I got nothing on that.
But here's few of some artis I follow.
Eleanor Rigby - Josh Turner I think most of the song he cover is old (idk I don't really listen to classic song). But good lord, he's talented af.
Jack Conte (CEO of Patreon) are on both of these. Pomplamoose is his band with his wife Nataly Dawn.
Scary pockets brings different singer (and other instrument) each song, mostly funk forward.
Just the 2 of us - Scary Pockets
If you like those two, you probably also like Lawrence
This is just straight up jazz but they're super good. Young Original - Its a lovely day today
Marilyn Manson's cover of Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics is a personal favorite
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
Love this one: House of the Rising Sun - Lauren O'Connell
Wind Rose - Diggy Diggy Hole
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
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.
motörhead recorded the cover version while recording their last album in 2015.
Generally I would say I like the music of Bowie better than motörhead, but in this case, their cover of his song is better than the original.
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
Republica's cover of Gary Numan - Are Friends Electric
Which also Dead Weather did I think
Edit to add: Apparently bands like to cover This Must be the Place.
I like Denzel Curry's cover of Bulls on Parade.
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. @macglocky
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 wanna be like you (jungle book) by psychedelic porn crumpets. Give it a try, it's good.
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.
Hurt by Johnny Cash
Oh, I'm so bookmarking this discussi.
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.
Neither metal nor female singer, but this is one of the best covers ever.
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.
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
I know there's a whole anti cars movement but I think it's a pretty good cover
(Embrace the chaos of my picks)
If you want covers better than originals, Johnny Cash is your man. His 'America 1-4' albums are full of them.
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
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