Harald Mueller said,

  'Singing is, arguably, the quintessential music.  Even if the singer
  sings a trivial melody, shouts against a battery of drums, croaks
  into a microphone, she or he will transport emotions in a way that is
  much easier to understand by "all".'

Well put, Harald.  In my opinion, more small (crank) organ owners should
use "the French solution."  They almost always seem to sing with organ
accompaniment, rather than expecting the world to kneel in praise of a
20-note musical machine.  Too many American (and I expect German) organ
owners fail to grasp that we can be _a show_, not just incidental
sounds.  I don't minimize a 20er organ; I have one and occasionally
sing to it, but when I play it in public I always try to put on a show.

Harald also said:

  'So we who do mechanical music, which is by definition not singing,
  need to look carefully at which music can be adapted to our
  instruments sensibly. ... One kind of music that comes to mind is film
  music, most of which is orchestral.'

My wife and I had the pleasure of attending the 2010 Great Dorset Steam
Fair (GDSF).  (We were on-site in a rented camper from Tuesday afternoon
through Monday morning and could not see it all.)

One of our highlights was seeing the Kelders family show with their two
Verbeek organs, "Victory" and "Locomotion" playing film themes together
while showing video clips such as "film trailers."  You can see clips
of their performances at other events on YouTube:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhpOayoIDj8
 
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tnn0a05sjpc
 

Used this way, they drew a good audience.  When playing many modern tunes,
these organs sort of sink to the level of "elevator music" -- pleasant
background sounds.  I also watched hundreds of people walk past great
organs like White's Mammoth Gavioli without even turning their heads:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb4IMYafXjQ
 

At the GDSF the four big organs set up with stages and presenting
(often corny) dancing girl shows and "Broadway numbers" with singers
and comedians generally had an audience.

Overall, I find that the smaller dance organs like the Decaps and a
late Mortier which include electronic voices do a better job with 1955
through 1980 pop music than the one-hundred-year-old giants.  Perhaps
it may be that organs sound best when performing the types of music
in vogue when they were built.

As far as newish pop music goes, look at the music machine on

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2SnYa2aJNo
 

I think that would get the attention of most kids today.

Wallace Venable