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I agree. That is what lead me into seeking confirmation that was deemed too explicit. That is assuming I've got it right. Its only a small thing but I guess that is where the delight comes from these small things.

Hello everyone. I enjoyed this one from Ifor but share the minor reservations expressed here about the adjustment that produces the final 4 changed grid entries.

As usual I have one niggle that I cannot shake off. Please can someone help me to parse the wordplay for 13 across? The answer is clear from the definition, I have identified the necessary adjustment to the clue, but still my poor scrambled brain cannot see how it works!

kitsune,

13A is 4 letter car synonym with final letter 'pinched' by 2-letter synonym for the modern equivalent of 'Personnel' (my bete-noire!)

Thank you, Muraria. As always it's so obvious in retrospect!

Having difficulty sorting my eighteen words into triplets here - can someone confirm that seven of the words appear to be plurals (I.e noun followed by an s)?

Yep, that's what I've got:-)

Just one question from me, relating to drxx’s statement that all of the highlighted items have been treated on some way. I can’t see that being the case for the first item (row 1, 5 letters?) - isn’t it just sitting there, within the solution for the top clue?

quiz - perhaps the treatment is that it isn’t just an answer in its own right.
I found the synonyms were tough to crack and it was more by luck that I found the singer. The rest fell out. I think it’s, on the whole, fairly sound, although imho there is an element of GWIT with the question. As annoying as it sounds, coming up with the correct answer does give 100% reassurance that it is correct. A good challenge, not my favourite though.

quiz, what makes the puzzle coherent (for me, at least) is the process of 'defining' the items we're highlighting. The two titles we're dealing with don't do this - in fact they make a virtue of not doing so, and that's the whole theme of the puzzle, as I see it. So, we're answering an unspoken question by adding to, or changing, certain key words (the one you mention going from verb to noun, for instance) or we're cryptically showing the 'things' in action.

useby - I agree with your 100% assurance comment - not only that, we're told where to look, how many words to change and how many cells to highlight.
As far as the triplets go - yes, I struggled a bit with the name but I quickly got the end parts and I'd already arrived at the theme via the song title (I only needed the two most obvious triplets for that before the puzzle's title pretty much confirmed it).
The generosity of Ifor's synonyms was much appreciated after the struggle I had with the other musical synonyms a few weeks ago - I got absolutely nowhere with those until I'd cracked the theme (more by luck than design). I didn't even need a dictionary for Ifor's set!

Like louweed and others I'm staring at 18 words struggling to make triplets. drxx's remark about the generosity of Ifor's synonyms almost makes me wonder if I've got completely the wrong 18 words! I have a bewildering variety of words and parts of speech, several words which it's hard to think of any synonym for, and among the others only the odd pair matching up and no really convincing triplet. I can see thematic words emerging in the grid, but googling those produces motorcycle maintenance manuals rather than songs, and the question doesn't mean anything to me yet, literally or cryptically. Without hinting at the theme itself, could someone who has cracked the synonyms try to give a nudge as to how we should be thinking about them?