Reply To: Jewish music? Mah zeh?

notasheep: I think there’s just a fundamental disagreement here. I think that music is a spiritual thing that can be influenced by the performer and the writer- not just one and not just the other. Some genres I think are tasteless (rap is one of them- I heard this frum rapper on Aish and I still didn’t like it, incidentally, I think it’s just a matter of opinion) and some I don’t, but I don’t think that any music is inherently anything.

According to a recent Mishpacha interview with Yochi Briskman, Jewish music (or rather, what’s accepted as “frum” music) is perpetually 20 years behind the times and we’re apparently in the middle of 90s soft rock or something similar. Yes, all music is derivative, or at least all of the music we’re able to produce without ruach hakodesh or something similar. There’s the whole famous thing about how chassidishe niggunim are from Polish marches. Everything comes from somewhere- and that somewhere is not always the most tahor of places- but it can become something special.

I’m holding back here from saying things I may regret, so this may sound incomplete, but in a nutshell I just don’t think that the impurity of music is as clear-cut as I personally have been told and taught.