The late Gordeanna McCulloch (fantastic singer) advocated the “sing it as you would say it” approach: indeed, in her workshops, she would get us to read through the lyrics of a song first, before singing them, so that we could get the full sense and phrasing of them, find the important words that needed more emphasis, etc. This advice could apply whether the song was accompanied or not.

As a friend recently said, after we had listened to a singer chopping up the words to fit his funky guitar rhythm, “It’s better to play your instrument to accompany the song, rather than try to fit the song to accompany your fancy instrumental rhythm”.
Then there are those that are so metronomically bound that you can almost hear the click track - again making nonsense of the words.