Hi Arri!
I agree with your subject title, but maybe for different reasons. You and others have talked about the quality of the listening environment/technology of the listener, and you have also discussed the importance of hearing vocals, hearing the words, and the timbre of the voice. You have also mentioned how you prefer the vocals and band/instruments to be heard within the soundscape, and how that has informed how you pan them, dynamics, effects etc. of course, this might vary from one song to the next.

It reminds me a little of an explanation of the perils of communication I learned when I studied communication at college …
The message you wanted to convey …
The message the receiver actually understood …
The feedback message the receiver wanted to give back to you …
The feedback you actually understood.

For me, even though I am learning mixing and arranging with each new song I write and record, and because I write songs there needs to be singing of words involved, my primary interest (what I really want my listeners to hear) is the melody sung over my chord choices and be turned on by how that all sounds harmonically and supported by the instruments. Mixing, arranging and production are for me about putting that harmonic picture in the best possible light so that bad production doesn’t detract or distract from the song I want them to hear and enjoy. For some of my songs - a lot of them but not all - the lyrics I use are just the vehicle to carry the song. I realise I am a bit odd in this way because many listeners are first attracted to the lyrics and the message or the emotion, but for me, it is mostly the harmonic idea, followed by rhythm. When I listen to others’ songs, my ear is first turned to things like melody, chord progression, instrumentation (the voice as an instrument) and only then will I go back and look at the lyrics.

This is a long way of me saying each of us should do it as we want it, BUT appreciate that listeners might hear it differently or prefer to hear it a different way or get turned off by the quality of what they’re hearing or overlook what the songwriter was striving to get them to hear. I want my listeners to say “I like that melody in the chorus over that interesting chord progression”, whereas what I often hear is a comment about rhyme style, a cool phrase, or something that needs attending to in the mix. We all aim for slightly different preferences and we hear different things in songs. That’s why this forum is so useful. Affirmation, blind spots, learning.

Andrew

Regards,
Andrew D
Adelaide, Sth Aust
Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/SQE4btVvNVkLq74e9
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@andrewoftheantipodes