It depends who. I looked up this shulem lemmer and listened to two of his songs, tniyaleh and a bit of the amar reb yosi, and they were both very earnest and eidel. I am a bit disappointed that he has agreed to sing non Jewish songs instead of insisting on singing yiddishe taam type of songs only which they can market in the name of diversity if they like, but that’s my thoughts.
It is a dangerous path to take to start compromising ones standards and bowing to secular norms, even within halacha, as bh it seems he has his Rabbanim he follows,and hopefully he’ll come to that conclusion and stronger geon Yaakov himself.
As far as the rock discussion etc. We had a presentation on music in seminary and it seems that Jewish music takes the current musical trend but infuses it with kedusha, thus elevating the style of music.
In not talking about singers who take non Jewish songs and put some tehillim to that – I think it’s a disgrace as the tune comes from the soul and inspirations of the composer and that’s not a match…
Rather for example, sephardi music has a definite different flavour to it than German ashkenazi Zemiros in line with the different music cultures of their respective countries.
But tellingly, the Arab music tends to go down with a depressing tone, whereas sephardi music is uplifting, filed with the joy of being connected to Hashem.
German music is cold and unfeeling whereas the Jewish music is permeated with an aidelkeit – submission to Hashem’s Will.
With the rock – we can say that the goishe rock is filed with immorality, while proper Jewish beaty music is infused with energy, koach and leaves one with the feeling that we can overcome our obstacles…