5 Of The Best Duets That Prove Polar Opposites Can Make Great Music Together

There's something captivating about duets that look like they shouldn't work on paper, only to yield extraordinary results. When we think of the duets of the '60s that cast a spell or the ones that made the '80s magic, there's a certain natural coherence to them. Ozzy Osbourne and Lita Ford teamed up for "Close My Eyes Forever," for example, but both were veterans of the same '80's metal scene. For that reason, the oddball pairings are all the more fascinating. We expect train wrecks, but instead get transcendence, and we're going to look at five such examples.

We expect a shred guitar master like Steve Vai to sound great alongside stylistic brethren like Joe Satriani, but Nelly Furtado is another story. And of course, we know Eminem can throw down some great back-and-forth with Dr. Dre, but what about Elton John? These are the duets that raise an eyebrow when proposed but go together remarkably well in practice. Some are studio recordings, others were one-off live performances, but all of them stand in utter defiance of the skeptical eyebrows they raise. 

Although Dolly Parton, the legendary singer and philanthropist, has left us, there's never a bad time to celebrate her extraordinary legacy. In the case of "The Day I Fall in Love," her duet with R&B/soul icon James Ingram whose, it's a testament to her evergreen ability to cross genre barriers irrespective of her country roots.

The two singers aren't inherently incompatible: both have rich, eternally ear-pleasing voices and the comfortable, easy delivery of seasoned veterans. But one is from the rarified realms of the Grand ol' Opry and the other from the slick urban world of New Jack Swing. That might seem like an insurmountably wide gap on paper, but they meet together in a soft rock middle ground that allows both vocalists to break free of their stylistic moorings. 

The warm, intoxicating duet was the soundtrack single for "Beethoven's 2nd," the second film in the beloved dog comedy franchise and one that showed us that romance is alive and well among long married couples, teenage crushes, and St. Bernards alike. A modest hit, the song reached No. 36 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart.

Barbra Streisand is the Broadway soprano whose clear as a bell voice has graced stage, screen, and stereo for decades. Bryan Adams is the gravely, somewhat hoarse-voiced rocker reminiscing about the summer of '69. Sure, he leans towards the softer, middle-of-the-road, John Mellencamp/Huey Lewis side of the rock spectrum, but there's still enough edge there to make him seem like a questionable pairing for the pop diva whose buttery voice left the girls on Saturday Night Live's "Coffee Talk" so endlessly verklempt. 

Recorded for the soundtrack to the Streisand film "The Mirror Has Two Faces," the unorthodox pairing in "I Finally Found Someone" works because it puts to music the film's own odd couple juxtaposition of two introverted romantic outsiders. Streisand is her usual vocal self — a warm, soothing tone that floats deftly between operatic and adult contemporary. Adams responds with the same sensitive bad-boy croon that served him so well on "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)" from the "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" soundtrack. We feel like he's just come home from fighting in a medieval battle and despite being seriously wounded, just wants to sit on the couch and hear about our day at work. 

The song was a solid hit, reaching No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Proof that, as in the film, the polarized are often the most harmonious. 

Steve Vai is, first and foremost, known for his reality-defying guitar chops thanks to a series of legendary solo albums and stints with Frank Zappa, Whitesnake, Alcatrazz, and David Lee Roth. Nelly Furtado, on the other hand, is a radio pop diva with a soaring, majestic voice but not much use for a six-string samurai. That alone would make their duet of "I'm Like a Bird" at the 44th annual Grammy Awards seem ill-advised and about as coherent as pairing Zakk Wylde with Natalie Imbruglia or Yngwie Malmsteen with Nora Jones. 

But Vai's musicianship goes much deeper than the average purveyor of dazzling shred guitar solos. As his extensive soundtrack and orchestral compositional work reveal, his first devotion is to the music itself. As such, he knows when to invoke humility and step into the sideman role. In the case of his performance with Furtado, that means checking the guitar histrionics at the door and employing a clean guitar tone and reverb-drenched chordal arrangement that feels somewhere between Prince and Jimi Hendrix.

The end result is that Furtado is able to step out of the mellow, background pop aura of the song's original tone and fully embrace her wider vocal range. The banal becomes the majestic, and a song that feels tailor made for restraint highlights each artist's excellence.

Great music made by opposites can have wider implications than just a unique pairing. When Eminem and Elton John performed together at the 43rd Grammys in 2001, it was more than just an unlikely pairing of a soft rock legend with a belligerent young upstart rapper. At the time of the performance, it would have been an understatement to say that Eminem's standing among the gay community had been less than stellar. Frequent use of anti-gay slurs and stereotypical portrayals of gay men in his lyrics had resulted in understandable public backlash. 

John, who felt the accusations were unfair, performed with Eminem to help mend his image. The pair teamed up on "Stan," Eminem's hit single and a portrayal of an obsessed listener that so effectively conveyed the mindset of celebrity stalkers that the title entered the popular discourse as slang for particularly devoted fans. It's a highly theatrical display with Elton John providing piano accompaniment and singing the melodic hook, a sample from the Dido song "Thank You." 

The live pairing demonstrates what "Stan" only implies as a recording: Eminem fully becomes the hyper-fixated maniac at the center of the disturbing lyrics, while John's performance of the hook is less whimsical and cheerful than Dido's original, with a more melancholic blues delivery that underscores the pain and detachment of the piece. The pair concluded with a warm, bro hug, signaling the redemption of a reputation and the conclusion of a chilling piece of musical theater.

Yes, Jackie Chan the martial arts icon. Yes, Ani DiFranco the folk singer. Yes, "Unforgettable" the Nat King Cole standard. Yes, this was a thing that really happened. From a conceptual standpoint, Jackie Chan and Ani DiFranco aren't mere opposites so much as galactically separated celestial bodies. So while Western audiences are getting their heads around the fact that Jackie Chan is also an accomplished singer with an extensive discography, let's take a look at the duet he tracked with the reigning goddess of '90s alternative folk rock.

The opening track for the 2002 compilation album "When Pigs Fly: Songs You Never Thought You'd Hear," the duet joins other completely unexpected renditions such as Herman's Hermits covering "White Wedding" and Lesley Gore doing "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap." But what's so notable is how straight the pair plays it with their performance. There's no goofy, eccentric sonic accentuation of Chan's Asian martial arts background or DiFranco's hippie aura to underscore the unusual pairing. Instead, two velvety voices lean in close to the mic and croon over a woodwind and electric-organ driven jazz ensemble. Thoughts of the pairing's unorthodox nature drop away, and we're left with an earnest and intoxicating rendition of one of pop music's great classics.