Music on Trial

During the 1920s live musical performances at first-run theaters became an exceedingly important aspect of the American cinema.

Eventually though, new technologies allowed artists to record and "can" their music so that people could listen to music at their home instead of seeing music live. This became an issue when it came to performances and theaters in cities across America.

Canned Music on Trial
This is the case of Art vs. Mechanical Music in theatres. The defendant stands accused in front of the American people of attempted corruption of musical appreciation and discouragement of musical education. Theatres in many cities are offering synchronised mechanical music as a substitute for Real Music. If the theatre-going public accepts this vitiation of its entertainment program a deplorable decline in the Art of Music is inevitable. Musical authorities know that the soul of the Art is lost in mechanisation. It cannot be otherwise because the quality of music is dependent on the mood of the artist, upon the human contact, without which the essence of intellectual stimulation and emotional rapture is lost.

For more on this, controversy in the 1920s, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio