Sorry, but I don't agree. Melody, at the expense of the backing, is simply wrong.

I never can quite understand how we can listen to stuff like this, and so many, many of our own user demos, and excuse a mix that we would never tolerate were one of our musical heroes to release something like it. We expect the music that we BUY to be balanced, full, everything in its place, nothing drowning anything else out...

Yet we forgive ourselves (and so many of the arranger examples posted from just about every source) the very same sin. The melody is only a PART of a piece of music. The backing is only a PART of the song. Get the mix wrong on either end of the scale, and it is still wrong.

If you go to a concert, and all you can hear is vocals, and you have to struggle to hear the drums, or the strings, or the horns, you don't walk out the hall going 'Well, melody is King'. You walk out the hall going 'The mix was lousy!'