The Archangel Sings
There are a lot of reasons why people like Antony And The Johnsons.
Some latch onto him because of the whole transgender thing (which, in some pockets of the world, seems to be somewhat trendy). There’s the whole downtown-post-Andy-Warhol thing, sadly reaching the point of its final diminuendo with the exodus of The Knitting Factory to (gads!) Brooklyn.
There’s even the mild humor — at least to my ears — of an artist who’s a boy, who wants to be a girl, pluralizing his last name so that he’s always attached to his, um, Johnson.
I don’t buy into any of those things.
I’m not even particularly fond of the genre where he lives — what do you call it: orchestral emo? I like a beat, I guess.
But there’s something fascinating about his voice. It’s dry. It’s reedy. It feels as though there’s a layer dust sticking to his words. I imagine someone finding a clarinet in darkened attic, learning to play it haltingly, wrestling with keys that don’t quite work right.
And he knows how to pick an album cover.
Antony And The Johnsons – Her Eyes Are Underneath The Ground
Antony sings with all his hart and soul, the emotion sounds trough it. you will believe what he sings [at least thats what i do
]
great artist…
Frisian
I would point to the Tom Wolfe’s book on the subject, but the title escapes me at the moment. The thing is that we often attach so much importance to the artist’s personal life that it overshadows the art. A poiece become good if the artist is popular, bad if he is unknown, worse if somehow he offends us…
There is a time for grasping meaning through context, and there is a time for simply enjoying the moment. Her Eyes… comes across as delicate and heartfelt. The bareness of the stage screams vulnerability, but a voluntary one, not one imposed. And it takes as much strength to be openly vulnerable as it takes talent to make such a song work.