I don't know if being "old and cantankerous" is something to be proud of. To me, it's just a way of asking people to overlook or excuse bad behavior, bad decisions, bad judgment, etc. based on the number of years you've managed to clock. Older doesn't always mean wiser, if fact, it seldom does. In any case, experience and longevity still doesn't trump facts.

It seems no matter how many times it's repeated, some people still can't seem to get the fact that taste in music is a SUBJECTIVE thing and that their views or opinions are no more valid than anyone else's. Comparing an amateur performance on YouTube to the greatest singers in the world hardly seems like the proper criteria for determining whether that performance is good or bad. Personally, I had no trouble understanding the words - maybe it was because I already knew the words, or maybe I was just too busy listening to the WHOLE performance as opposed to nitpicking. Joe Cocker is one of my favorite singers yet I usually can only understand about 50% of his lyrics, especially on up-tempo tunes. I would never compare him to Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett (whom I happen to like better than Sinatra) because they are into a totally different bag. But for me, Joe Cocker brings something else to the table (certainly not diction ) that makes me like his music....and in the end, isn't that all that counts?

Someone once said, "if you come across a dog that can talk, you don't question his grammar"....or something to that effect. I think it's perfectly okay to question the young lady's diction, but I just don't think that that's enough (or that it was bad enough) to shoot down the entire performance. After all, diction can be taught, talent can't.

chas