Just browsing through a history book (Gareth Stedman Jones's 'Languages of Class'), I found an amusing quotation reinforcing my point above, referring to changing popular tastes in the 1890s:

'Formerly Shakespeare plays and ballad singing had been popular items of a social evening. Now music hall entertainment was all that was demanded. According to a report of a social in one South London club:
"A gentleman so far forgot himself as to sing two Ballads at the South Bermondsey Club the other evening, and was hissed by the younger people present, who left the hall in disgust. This is the result of giving the younger people 'Hi-ti' and 'Get Yer 'Air Cut', and pandering to a vitiated taste."'

(Cf. Mudcatters denouncing e.g. The X-Factor for 'pandering to a vitiated taste' some 120 years on.)