With his Johnsons intact, Antony Hegarty has recorded four full-lengths, and nearly twice as many EPs, in just over a decade. Even in today’s over-sharing climes, that’s a lot of music. Be they hard or something a little softer, I duly confess, I own every ware. You might say I’m a collector, of sorts. But not even Linnæus could keep ledger on Antony’s prodigious side projects, featuring spots and vanity cameos. There’s simply too many to name.

I might have tried harder, perhaps, if I genuinely liked his voice. His overwrought, near haughty warble, extolled to the point of parody by so many sycophants, does very little for me. If anything, especially on the long players, his bel canto blather can bother the balls right out from under me. Come the halfway hole, I’d rather listen to Little Anthony and The Imperials; by “Flétta,” the ninth cut on Hegarty’s Swanlights proper (and a woeful duet with Björk, to böot), I’d almost take Anthony Kiedis. “When I first heard [Antony], I knew I was in the presence of an angel,” quoth Lou Reed. Ha! Nice try, old man.

Regarding all those side projects: the objet d’une-offs with the likes of Yoko Ono, David Tibet, Little Annie, CocoRosie, Bryce Dessner, Marina Abramović, Laurie Anderson-Reed et al. do not show a kitten’s curiosity, much less the versatility of chameleons. Instead, much like Byron Coley wrote in his thick black slagging of Bowie, such aesthetic hopscotch illustrates “the vacillation of a man who has no center.” Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that; clearly, Hegarty cannot be held down. Moreover, no one puts Tony in a corner.

Of course, ‘man’ is the biggest plank in the eye here. Antony Hegarty, as we all know, is neither man nor woman. Honestly, it’s not that big a deal anymore. All but the bigots have accepted his/her third-spirit claims as fait accompli. (And even those critics who aren’t yet sold wholesale nonetheless bow in deference to their straight man’s burden.) What has puzzled me the most, however, is why Hegarty’s Faerie ideology — a real right-via-left virtue — hasn’t gotten progressively more radical.

Upon the release of Antony and the Johnsons’ The Crying Light, that delicate opus from 2009 that also got its own concert setting, Ann Powers named that record “the most personal environmentalist statement possible, making an unforeseen connection between queer culture’s identity politics and the green movement.” Yet, when it comes to verbalizing — not merely vocalizing — said connection, Hegarty’s lips remain sealed. Think of all the good he could do for his beloved Mother Earth if he would only come out, as it were, in full support of Her. We don’t need a gender martyr, just a loud, transgendered advocate. Until then, as Drew Daniel once said of Morrissey’s celibacy, I too profess of Antony’s silence, if not every one of his records hence: it’s all “a reactionary cop-out.”

Then again, I’d never heard Antony Hegarty live and in-person — much less backed by a 60-piece orchestra, in a performance commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art, at the showplace of his adopted nation. Surely, here would be the place, now would be the time to make a public profession of faith. Billed for months by Klaus Biesenbach, MoMA’s chief curator, as “a meditation on light, nature and femininity,” we were certainly promised one. Ushered into the hall with the strains of William Basinski’s Variations for Piano, I became even more excited. Finally, when Dr. Julia Yasuda, Hegarty’s favorite Manchurian hermaphrodite, took the stage to introduce Swanlights, every triangle of my body was tickled both pink and green. “I am concerned about nature changing and dying. Won’t you please help her? Otherwise, the world will be too lonely,” s/he beseeched.

Alas, Antony Hegarty made no great broadcast in Radio City Music Hall that night. John D. Rockefeller be damned. Indeed, he sang as he always does. And, to be fair, Antony’s voice proved a grand instrument unto itself. It still takes its toll on me, personally, but there’s no denying he’s got the best pipes in his corps. Speaking of, the nimble orchestra, ably led by Rob Moose, played Nico Muhly and Johnson concertmaster Maxim Moston’s arrangements just fine. Likewise, the laser show provided by Chris Levine and Paul Normandale shone nicely off Carl Robertshaw’s suspended sets, though there was some frequent AV dissonance between Hegarty’s sound and their images. In short, it was yet another of what Le Monde might hail a “concert-manifeste transsexuel.” (Only this time, Hegarty wore a gown by Ohne Titel and did a Beyoncé cover!) But as Jon Pareles duly noted in the New York Times, “the concert was no direct plea or protest.” What a shame.

A collection of Antony’s drawings, curated by James Elaine, is currently being shown at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. I have not seen them. But of course, being something of a Hegarty collector, myself, I will soon. Regardless, unlike Swanlights the album, Swanlights the book and absolutely Swanlights the concert totale at Radio City, these scribblings must not err on the side of subtly. If he’s not going to do it on record, in print or on stage, I do hope Antony Hegarty will speak up and be counted once his art is hanging on a wall. For a boy who christened his band after a S.T.A.R. like Marsha P. Johnson, we should expect nothing less. In fact, we have to demand it now. I’ve long lost patience with Antony’s medium; I don’t want to do the same with his message. To wit, I have to ask à la Dylan: how many Mercury Prizes must one win before you call him “a man?”

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