It's a brickbat that might carry some weight were it a case of the emperor not wearing any clothes.
Happily, Wainwright can strut peacock-like, safe in the knowledge that his wobbly bits are covered.
At one extreme of Wainwright's oeuvre is Prima Donna, a full-blown opera that concentrates his passion for the form.
At the other is every sparse and beautiful ballad he ever performed with no more accompaniment than a guitar or piano.
Somewhere in the middle are the albums that mix these influences with equal parts dream-pop, stage-musical chutzpah and neatly crafted rock.
Want One (2003) is Wainwright's third, and finest, album.
It draws on everything from the emotional chaos of a life set in train by folk-singer parents Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III (Oh What A World, I Don't Know What It Is, Dinner At Eight), to addiction (Movies Of Myself) and the ups and downs of a colourful love life (Vicious World, Vibrate, Harvester Of Hearts).
Stylistically, the album covers so much ground it risks losing focus, but Wainwright eases his way around the hazard by employing a music-theatre director's sense of pace and timing. After every soaring climax can be found a gentle diversion, a brooding pause or a wry aside.
There's a sense Wainwright relishes the bittersweet moments in life as much as the flaming dramas, as they feed his artistic need to construct a compelling storyboard. Indeed, the vein tapped here was so rich it flowed into a second album, Want Two (2004).
Evidence of Wainwright's nous is in the quality of album centrepiece Go Or Go Ahead.
In it lies each of the aforementioned modes of delivery, constructing a song so complete it can transport the listener in the same way a movie might.
And what is theatre without a little glitz and glamour?
