In the 1920's the world of popular music was different, way different, than it is today. Vinyl records as a commercial enterprise really began in 1925 and it would take years for it to really hit big.
The result of that is that popular music was distributed through sheet music, and sheet music went to retail outlets and triend to get the shop owner to buy the music for songs they thought would be popular..
Immediately, you are lookiing at a totally different set of laws of consumption. For one thing, to rally consume music you had to play it, cover it, and also, the listener had to listen to live if only by sitting around the piano or, just as likely, the radio.
The radio promoted and the sheet music sold the product, big bands toured all the time though before rock and roll it was an expensive endeavor.
Reeling after the Great Depression where the one percent kept the party going, vinyl let music into households, it made it a middle class pursuit and gave the choice away from the programers.
What was being played at the time a mix of the American songbook, and not quite the American songbook, Betty Boop novelty numbers, and always dance oriented. The look instrumental intro, the two minutes of verse, and the long instrumental outro.
It was a different time of course, songwriters wrote songs, singers sung em, orchestras played em. The 1920s would begin the process which continues to this day.