Antony & The Johnsons
The Crying Light
Secretly Canadian, 2009
By Allana Mayer
Since ‘05, things have been quiet on the Antony & The Johnsons front. I Am A Bird Now was one of those albums that nobody thought could be topped — thus, Antony Hegarty fucked off for a few years. Alongside his numerous forays into the cultural sphere (including insulting Sean Penn while trying to support transgender rights, singing for Hercules and Love Affair, designing a ballgown for charity, hanging out with Marina Abramovich and Bjork, and getting his visual art sold), Antony found time to pose on the cover of every magazine in the universe. Oh yeah, and eventually he got around to making another album. Hey, I never said it was a good album. The gown he designed was pretty, though.
The Crying Light is just like his debut; from the sound alone, I’d guess they were all written around the same time, and that some of these are songs that didn’t fit on I Am A Bird Now. The songs are vacant of experiment and innovation, yet pleasing in a vapid way. You’re never really sure what he’s singing about, but it does feel important. “Kiss My Name” is just an excuse to sing the word “kiss” over and over, as far as I can tell; “Another World” and “Daylight and the Sun” are wrist-slitting music at its finest.
Antony just seems to me like someone who has never had even the tiniest sense of humour about anything. Even with a song called “Epilepsy is Dancing” — and how can you not have a sense of humour about that? You’d think I’d be in awe of his incredible deadpan, but I’m actually convinced that some part of his crusade for gender/post-gender equality (extensive surgery? Too much crying at Oprah segments?) has left him without the required facial muscles to produce a smile. Still, it gives him that cool voice, so I guess it’s okay.
As a self-hating-woman, I find his self-hating-man saga a fascinating one, even if I can’t stand his music. His website states that he thinks “a feminist revolution might save our world”, and, even if it didn’t, it would be hard to ignore the generally-held opinion that he is a black woman trapped inside a white man’s body. You have to take “self-hating” with a grain of salt, for both of us — it’s not that we don’t like who we are, it’s just that the other gender seems so much cooler, has gotten all the enviable traits. I don’t necessarily want to be a man, but they sure are more fun to hang out with; I can’t claim that Antony wants to be a woman, but he sure does stick them up on a scarily-high pedestal.
But I’m overjoyed to see Antony getting respect as an artist, rather than just publicity for being opositional to our categorizing instincts. I suppose if he did it with self-deprecation it would be easier for people to laugh at him; his seriousness and the honest dramatic reactions it elicits from fans makes him a much more compelling figure. Even if his music irritates me and my commitment to the notion that intelligence requires humour, I have to give him kudos. I just wish his version of the feminine ideal didn’t involve being gut-wrenchingly miserable all the time. I still want to pinch his elfen cheeks and tell him to buck up.
Indeed with the kudos. At the very least, this release is seasonally appropriate. Embrace it!