Anthony Fantano ( ; born October 28, 1985) is an American
music critic
''The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of mus ...
and
YouTuber who runs the
YouTube channel The Needle Drop and its tie-in website. He discusses and reviews music from a variety of
genres in his YouTube videos and on his website.
Early life
Fantano spent his teenage years in
Wolcott, Connecticut
Wolcott () is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. It is primarily residential, with a population of 16,142 as of the 2020 United States Census.
The town was settled in the 1730s by English settlers of the Connecticut Colony a ...
.
As a teenager, Fantano became interested in politics through the work of the musician
Jello Biafra, former lead singer of the
punk band
Dead Kennedys, calling him "pretty much my political idol".
Career
Fantano started his career in the mid-2000s as a music director for the
Southern Connecticut State University college radio station.
In 2007, Fantano started working at
Connecticut Public Radio (WNPR), where he hosted ''The Needle Drop''.
That same year, he launched ''The Needle Drop'' in the form of written reviews, eventually launching his series of video reviews on the YouTube channel of the same name in January 2009, starting with a
Jay Reatard record.
Fantano has said that his review for
Flying Lotus' 2010 album ''
Cosmogramma'' appearing next to other Flying Lotus videos in YouTube's "Featured Videos" section gave him the "hint" to continue making video reviews.
In 2010, Fantano removed older reviews that contained music clips in order to avoid violations of the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
At the time, he was working on ''The Needle Drop'' at the college radio station, as well as at a pizza restaurant. In late 2011, he decided to pursue ''The Needle Drop'' full-time, but kept affiliation with WNPR until 2014.
Fantano was offered an album review show on
Adult Swim
Adult Swim (AS; stylized as dult swimand often abbreviated as s is an American adult-oriented night-time cable television Television channel, channel that shares channel space with the basic cable network Cartoon Network and is programme ...
but declined.
In order to earn enough money to pay his editor Austin Walsh, by November 2016, Fantano had recorded more regularly on a secondary YouTube channel, "thatistheplan", on which he reviewed memes and recorded "often irreverent videos that don't fall into the record review format", according to ''
Spin
Spin or spinning most often refers to:
* Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thread by twisting fibers together, traditionally by hand spinning
* Spin, the rotation of an object around a central axis
* Spin (propaganda), an intentionally b ...
''.
This secondary channel came into question and controversy in October 2017, when an article published in ''
The Fader'' accused Fantano of promoting
alt-right
The alt-right, an abbreviation of alternative right, is a far-right, white nationalist movement. A largely online phenomenon, the alt-right originated in the United States during the late 2000s before increasing in popularity during the mid-2 ...
sentiments in videos on "thatistheplan". Fantano was criticized for the use of
Pepe the Frog memes (which had recently been labeled
an alt-right symbol) and targeting feminists. After the article was released, multiple scheduled dates of "The Needle Drop" U.S. tour were cancelled, with at least one ticket booking site for a
Brooklyn tour date stating that their cancellation was due to the ''Fader'' article.
Fantano produced a video response calling the critical article a "hit job". He disputed accusations of sympathizing with the alt right and stated that the videos in question were satirical. The article was later deleted by ''The Fader'', with both parties saying that the claims were settled. In a later interview, Fantano acknowledged that there had been some "grubby, closed-minded, young, aggressive male" viewers on the "thatistheplan" channel and disavowed what he saw as the "toxic and problematic" side of internet humor, stating that the incident had led him to be more vocal in his advocacy for
social justice issues.
By the end of 2017, Fantano had reached a million subscribers and diversified his content to include weekly "track roundup" videos, livestreamed Q&As, and video think-pieces alongside his album reviews.
In June 2019, Fantano had a cameo in
Lil Nas X's video for the
Young Thug and
Mason Ramsey remix of "
Old Town Road", appearing as a security guard for the
Area 51 military installation (a reference to the "
Storm Area 51" meme). Later that year he curated a charity compilation, ''The Needle Drop LP'', which consists of "artists that have either been featured on the site or reviewed favorably in the past". Profits from the album were donated to The Immigrant Legal Resource Center non-profit.
On September 15, 2022, Fantano uploaded a video on his second channel claiming that Canadian rapper and singer
Drake had sent private messages to him on
Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
, specifically recommending Fantano a vegan cookie recipe. One day later, Drake revealed the actual contents of his message to Fantano on Instagram Stories as a diss against him. Fantano later revealed his astonishment on an Instagram livestream, going on to joke about the debacle.
Reception
The Needle Drop won the 2011
O Music Awards in the "Beyond the Blog" category. In 2014, Nick Veronin of ''
Wired'' said of Fantano "Instead of deploying ten-dollar words to describe a
riff or
synth tone, Fantano relies on gestures, clenching his fists or contorting his elastic, expressive face. It gets at some of the more ephemeral qualities of music that written words can't begin to touch."
When asked about the merits of Fantano's reviews, veteran music critic
Robert Christgau
Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...
said in 2019:
antanoseems to have arrived at a plausible brand of 21st-century rockcrit taste that runs toward what I'll call dark prog ..Nowhere near as insensible to hip-hop/ r&b as dark proggers tend to be, but note that very few female artists crack his top 10s, which in 2018 was really missing the action. Fantano seems to have figured out a way to make some kind of living by disseminating his own criticism in the online age.
In his 2019 book ''Perfect Sound Whatever'', comedian
James Acaster called Fantano's best albums of 2016 list "a real music fan's Top 50" and said of Fantano "perhaps more than anybody else, he appreciates how the reviewer's role has changed since the internet became a thing
..The job of a reviewer used to be telling people what's worth their money but now it's telling people what's worth their time."
In September 2020, ''
New York Times'' culture correspondent Joe Coscarelli described Fantano as "probably the most popular music critic left standing". According to Coscarelli, Fantano has successfully brought an "old art to a new medium" and has revitalized the record review format for a younger generation of music consumers.
Personal life
Fantano resides in
Connecticut.
He is a
vegan, having swapped to the diet after first going vegetarian in his late teens.
In March 2018, Fantano told
''Polygon'' that he is a "
free speech purist". Fantano endorsed
Bernie Sanders
Bernard Sanders (born September8, 1941) is an American politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Vermont since 2007. He was the U.S. representative for the state's at-large congressional district from 1991 to 2007 ...
in the
2020 United States presidential election
The 2020 United States presidential election was the 59th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. The Democratic ticket of former vice president Joe Biden and the junior U.S. senator from California Kamala Ha ...
.
Discography
Albums
*''Taiga'' (2009)
*''Anthony FanFiction Vol.1'' (2015)
Guest appearances
*"21 & Jaded" on ''Never Forget Where You Came From'' by
Goody Grace
Goody Grace (born Branson Gudmundson; June 19, 1997) is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter and producer from Selkirk, Manitoba. He has released one full length album and two EPs, as well as having co-written songs for musicians such as Machi ...
(2021)
*"Every Drug at Once" on ''FASTER'' by Lil Texas (2022)
*"NeedleDrop" on ''Vinyl Days'' by
Logic (2022)
as Cal Chuchesta
Mixtapes
*''The New CALassic'' (2015)
Singles
*"Cal 2 B" (2013)
*"Mykey Come Back" (2015)
*"
Panda (Remix)" featuring
Pink Guy and NFKRZ (2016)
*"Coin Star" (2018)
*"Don't Talk to Me" featuring Fellatia Geisha (2018)
*"Slap Chop" (2018)
*"On Deck Freestyle" (2018)
*"I'm in the Club (Lookin' for Some Love)" featuring Joycie (2018)
*"Advice" featuring
Rob Scallon (2018)
*"Rubber Duck (Pickup Truck)" (2019)
*"Best Teef?" (2019)
*"
East (Remix)" (2020)
References
External links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fantano, Anthony
1985 births
21st-century American bass guitarists
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American people of Italian descent
American atheists
American male bloggers
American bloggers
American podcasters
American music critics
American music journalists
American social democrats
American YouTubers
Internet properties established in 2009
Living people
American male YouTubers
Musicians from Connecticut
Music YouTubers
People from Wolcott, Connecticut
Southern Connecticut State University alumni
Twitch (service) streamers
YouTube controversies
YouTube critics and reviewers
YouTube vloggers