Actually Jim, what they both said was that they COULD hear most of the words, which is somewhat different!

BH - please don't drag me into your argument with Jim. When I said I had difficulty hearing (some of) the words, I was saying (politely) that the words weren't as clear as I'd like them to be, and thought it would be taken that way. I also thought it'd be taken as constructive criticism, not used as ammunition against somebody whose comments I basically agree with.

If you're interested, I think what makes (some of) the words hard to hear isn't the mix or the volume of the backing, so much as the amplification of the voice itself, combined with your (and the other guy's) intonation.

in general, the accompaniment doesn't (accompany, that is) it dominates, making the words irrelevant and turning the song into a piece of well-performed music - fine, if you like that sort of thing

Listening to Bellowhead (it might be easier to talk about a third party rather than hang all this on BH's own music) I often find myself thinking two things at once: "That was absolutely brilliant!" And "What's happened to the song?"

What would you actually learn if you learned Roll Alabama from Bellowhead's version, or Tom Padget from Spiers & Boden's? Would it make you want to seek out unaccompanied versions of those songs? I'm really not sure.