Anthony Fantano: Who Is He? Music Critic That Got Clapped by Drake
Anthony Fantano, a music critic based in the United States who also posts videos on YouTube, runs the website and channel known as The Needle Drop. Let’s find out who Anthony Fantano is, shall we?
What Exactly Took Place in the Interaction Between Drake and Anthony?
There has been some tension brought to light between Drake and the music writer Anthony Fantano.
The Needle Drop is a YouTube channel run by a 36-year-old user who has 2.6 million subscribers. On the channel, the user discusses and critiques a wide variety of musical genres.
Drake has made it quite clear that he is not the singer’s biggest fan, and he has criticized the singer’s most recent albums in an open and honest manner on his YouTube channel.
This past week, the rapper made fun of the critic in his direct messages (DMs) on Instagram. The critic responded with a comical video in which he displayed multiple examples of “fake” DMs, and the rapper continued to poke fun at the critic.
Who is Anthony Fantano?
Anthony Fantano, a music critic from the United States, is the proprietor of the website and channel on YouTube known as The Needle Drop. His writings on his blog and films that he uploads to YouTube discuss and dissect a wide variety of musical styles.
Fantano’s parents were immigrants from Sicily to the United States, and he was born in Connecticut. In the middle of the 2000s, Fantano started working at the campus radio station of Southern Connecticut State University, where he was eventually promoted to the position of music director. In 2007, Fantano started his career in broadcasting by becoming a host for The Needle Drop on Connecticut Public Radio.
Anthony Fantano is a music critic and YouTuber from the United States. He was born on October 28, 1985, and he is responsible for running the YouTube channel The Needle Drop as well as the website that is associated with it. On his website and in his videos on YouTube, he discusses and reviews a wide range of musical styles.
Anthony Fantano’s Bio
His early life Fantano was born in Connecticut and can trace his ancestry back to Sicily through his American grandparents. The town of Wolcott, Connecticut, was his home throughout his teenage years. Fantano says that Jello Biafra, former lead singer of the hardcore punk band Dead Kennedys, was “very much my political idol” when he was a teenager and the reason he became involved in politics through the work of the musician Jello Biafra.
Fantano began his professional life in the middle of the 2000s working as a music director for the college radio station broadcasting out of Southern Connecticut State University.
In 2007, Fantano began his career in broadcasting by taking a position as a host for The Needle Drop at Connecticut Public Radio (WNPR).
In the same year, he began publishing written reviews under the name The Needle Drop. In January 2009, he began publishing a series of video reviews under the same name on a YouTube channel with the same name, beginning with a record by Jay Reatard.
According to Fantano, the fact that his review for Flying Lotus’ 2010 album Cosmogramma was displayed in the same part of YouTube’s “Featured Videos” as other videos of Flying Lotus gave him the “hint” to continue generating video evaluations of albums. Fantano erased earlier evaluations from its site in 2010 that contained music samples in order to comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and prevent legal issues.
During that time, he was working both at a pizza restaurant and at the college radio station, where he hosted a show called “The Needle Drop.” Late in 2011, he made the decision to devote his full time and energy to The Needle Drop, but he continued his affiliation with WNPR until 2014. Fantano turned down an opportunity from Adult Swim to host a show in which he would evaluate albums.
As of November 2016, Fantano had begun recording more frequently on a secondary YouTube channel known as “thatistheplan.” On this channel, he reviewed memes and recorded “often irreverent videos that don’t fall into the record review format,” according to Spin. This allowed him to earn enough money to pay his editor Austin Walsh.
In October 2017, an article that was published in The Fader accused Fantano of fostering alt-right beliefs in videos on “thatistheplan.” This led to this secondary channel being called into question and becoming the subject of controversy. Both the usage of Pepe the Frog memes, which had just lately been dubbed an alt-right icon, and Fantano’s targeting of feminists drew criticism from the internet community. After the article was published, numerous scheduled dates of “The Needle Drop” U.S. tour were cancelled, and at least one ticket booking site for a Brooklyn tour date stated that their cancellation was due to the Fader story. These cancellations occurred after the article was posted.
Fantano responded to the critical article by producing a video in which he referred to it as a “hit job.” He denied the allegations that he had any affiliation with the alt-right and said that the videos in question were satirical in nature. After some time had passed, the story was taken down by The Fader, and both parties stated that the allegations had been resolved.
In a later interview, Fantano acknowledged that there had been some viewers on the “thatistheplan” channel who were “grubby, closed-minded, young, aggressive males.” He disavowed what he saw as the “toxic and problematic” side of internet humor and stated that the incident had led him to be more vocal in his advocacy for social justice issues.
By the time 2017 came to a close, Fantano had amassed one million subscribers and had broadened the scope of his work to include livestreamed question and answer sessions, video think pieces, and weekly “track roundup” videos in addition to his album reviews.
Fantano made a surprise appearance in the video that Lil Nas X released in June 2019 for the Young Thug and Mason Ramsey remix of “Old Town Road.” He played the role of a security guard at the Area 51 military complex in the clip.
Later on that same year, he was responsible for compiling a charity album called The Needle Drop LP. This album features “artists that have either been featured on the site or reviewed favorably in the past.” The non-profit organization known as The Immigrant Legal Resource Center received the contributions made from the album’s sales.
Awards of Anthony Fantano
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.”
Veteran Music Critic Robert Christgau Said In 2019:
Fantano seems 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 a “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 and was married for some time to Dominique Boxley, though she filed for divorce in 2022.
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 in the 2020 United States presidential election.
Anthony Fantano shares some fake Drake DMS
The music critic published a video titled “Drake Slid Into My DMs” on his second YouTube account Fantano on Thursday, September 15.
He disclosed multiple Instagram direct messages (DMs) that he said Drake had sent him in the eight-minute tape, as well as several screenshots.
He said that he was lifting weights in the garage when he became sidetracked by a message from the One Dance vocalist.
One of the most powerful figures in the music business, Drake, a blazing Canadian, contacted him, he alleged.
A Music Reviewer Says Drake Sent a Cookie Recipe
According to Anthony, the following was written in the “odd and unexpected” message: “Anthony! Here we have Drizzy. I am aware that you are not the biggest fan of the bulk of my albums and that we do not always see eye to eye when it comes to topics pertaining to music.
Before taking an unexpected turn, the message continued by saying, “But it is what it is you know, can always hope you like the next one.”
The music critic stated that Drake gave him a recipe for vegan cookies that he wanted him to try, along with a full list of the ingredients. He also claimed that Drake invited him to taste the cookies.
I would be quite grateful to you if you could check this out and let me know whether or not it would be worthwhile for me to try it on my own. We value you! Drizzy, leave! The message has reached its conclusion.
The following words that came out of Anthony’s mouth were, “It’s unbelievable that he messaged me,” “Praise be to you,” and “You’re the best.”
It was extremely obvious that Drake was being sarcastic when he responded to the video by saying that the screenshots he released were fakes. His reaction was given in a rush.
