> I think it is paying the ultimate respect to a singer to actually listen to what they are singing. If someone has gone to the trouble of actually learning a song and practiced it until they feel comfortable enough to sing it in company, I think the least we should do is listen.

Not the "ultimate" respect, the "least" respect. It goes for playing, too, except, obviously, at dances. Too often, live musicians are
thought of as little more than part of the speaker system.

Thanks to portable devices, music for too many people has become a soothing background hum to accompany their lives. Movie characters don't comment on the soundtrack.

Paying attention to live musicians would be like eating a bowl of corn flakes and thinking, every morning, "Gee, people actually made this stuff from corn that grows out of the ground. I bet it was hard!"

No, you just eat the corn flakes and go on to something else.

Hence the relative unpopularity of genres that do require attention.