Songs with male and female lead vocals in unison

Most X songs.

 

Unison singing is two people singing the exact same note at the same time. When there are two singers and one is "up a third" or singing some other note, that is called Harmony singing. Just an FYI.

Ed

 

Tonight You Belong To Me - Eddie Vedder and Cat Power

 

The last half of each stanza in this song of mine (octaves)

 

And the first two examples have harmony... they are not in unison. The Lennon/Ono example of "Angela" has the verse sung in union (in different octaves) and the choruses in unison in the same octave.

 

There isn't much unison singing here either.

Ed

 

If (multi) octave intervals count, you might include Past The Mission by Tori Amos, with its Trent Reznor cameo.

 

Roger Nichols & the Small Circle of Friends would sometimes do this with their vocalists Murray and Melinda MacLeod, such as on Don't Take Your Time (at least up until the last verse, where they switch to singing in harmony instead):

 

They aren't singing in unison. Nicks is singing harmony.

 

That’s incorrect. It’s a shared lead vocal sung in close harmony. Petty’s vocal does not take precedence.

 

I think the point was that they are not unison or octave, not to give precedence to one of them.

 

Manic Street Preachers - Little Baby Nothing (from ~1.15)

 

Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66 had male/female octave doubled vocals often (chorus of "Mas Que Nada" for instance).

 

Unison literally means “one voice”. It refers to two singers singing the same pitch or an octave apart, with the same phrasing, same dynamics, so that they sound as one. “Insider” is a beautiful song but it ain’t sung in unison.

 

My bad. I failed to read the op closely. I didn’t realize this was limited to male and female performers singing in perfect unison. That’s probably pretty unusual in pop music.

 

some people never know - wings

 

Up Where We Belong

 

It takes two

 

There's no unison singing in that song.

Ed

 

Not in that one either.

Unison singing is not harmony singing.

Ed

 

Renaissance - Kiev

Not the whole song, but there's a few instances of Camp and Annie sharing lead vocals, moreso early on - come to think of it, Prologue, Rajah Khan, Ashes Are Burning, Things I Don't Understand, Mother Russia, the beginning part of Song of Scheherazade, Touching Once, The Captive Heart, Back Home once Again, and On The Frontier all have portions with at least two singing in unison. Not even counting harmony vocals, which are plenty, or the first Renaissance which has from what I remember is full of this stuff.

 

BTW, this was first performed by Bebe and Cece Winans on PTL (Jim Bakker's network at the time) in 1981 before Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes made it a mainstream hit in 1982, and then in 1984, Bebe and Cece released the song as a single to CCM radio and that recording became a CCM hit.

Here's Bebe and Cece's 1984 recording of it:

 

I think "Some People Never Know," "I Am Your Singer" and "Tomorrow" all briefly have Paul and Linda in unison. Can't think of other examples offhand.

 

funny. i was gonna offer "los angeles". they did that a lot.

 

period.