Do you have to be orthodox to make good Jewish religious music?

I recently got sent a CD called 'Better Get Ready' by a New York-based Jewish punk band called Moshiach Oi. It's down and dirty, fearsomely fast and undeniably hardcore. The band are ultra-orthodox, probably Chabadniks from what I can gather and the lyrics reflect this with lots of talk about Moshiach and mitzvot. The aggression of punk seems to match the fundamentalism of the message.

Then I heard about an Israeli band called Chasidica (there's a feature on them here). Here's their logo:

While the Metallica-logo shtick would appear to suggest yet another Jewish parody band, Chasidica are much more interesting: their left-field alt rock influences combine with their interest in chassidus and kabbalah to produce quite an intriguing brew (although they too are prone to bouts of tiresome Moshiach-ism).

When I think of bands like this, plus other acts like Y Love or Matisyahu, I'm struck by how pretty much the only Jewish acts who sing about spiritual/religious stuff that I like tend to be orthodox - and often ultra-orthodox. The kinds of Jewish music I can't stand tend to be made by Reform Jews - who I am much closer to in practice - like Craig Taubman or Debbie Friedman. Progressive religion doesn't seem to fit well with cutting edge music, at least in the Jewish case. So the most intriguing music tends to be made by either secular or orthodox Jews and the  centre is mostly pretty mushy.

There's another pattern here: the music I seem to enjoy most seems to be made by people whose views I don't share, even abhor. I seem to like the music of fundamentalists like Moshiach Oy or Burzum more than I do the music of people like me. Perhaps because fundamentalists are good at passion?

So nu am I being unfair? Probably...

Comments

[Graeme]

"I'm struck by how pretty much the only Jewish acts who sing about spiritual/religious stuff that I like tend to be orthodox - and often ultra-orthodox."

I'm guessing that part of this is because a lot of this stuff seems to be evangelical and is analogous to the Christian rock thing.

Burzum I think is a completely different phenomenon.

[Keith Kahn-Harris]

Actually I think that orthodox Jewish music is different than evangelical Xtian rock. It is progressive Jewish music that tends to be similar to Xtian rock.

[Graeme]

I don't really know any progressive Jewish music so I'll defer to you on this...most of (ie almost all) Jewish music I listen to is John Zorn/Tzadik related so I don't have the best idea of what's around. Still, while Moshiac Oi is far better than I expected it to be (at its best it sounds reasonably like Minor Threat, which is no bad thing), they're still making hardcore versions of Shema Yisroel--if this was a band that sounded like that singing "Our God Is An Awesome God" or whatever songs it is that Christians sing in church, I'd be really creeped out.

[Keith Kahn-Harris]

I'm not sure why but a Minor Threat-style version of Shema Yisrael creeps me out less than happy clappy Christian music...

[ephraim]

I totally agree with your observation, but i'd add that this is not strictly a jewish phenomenon. Compare super conservative southern baptist gospel or sacred harp singing with liberal christian or unitarian hymns. The later are just pallid and boring in comparison. Religous zealotry (or zealotry of any sort, really) tends to produce good music, pretty much across the board.

[Chris_B]

Except that theres nothing progressive about 80s style hard core or metal or hip hop or jam band music. Its all well established stuff thats existed for more than a generation now