Anthony Fantano | |
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 Fantano in 2016 | |
| Born | Anthony Nicholas Fantano (1985-10-28)October 28, 1985 (age 40) Wolcott, Connecticut, U.S. |
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| YouTube information | |
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| Genre | Music |
| Subscribers | 3.06 million |
| Views | 1.1 billion |
| Last updated: October 26, 2025 | |
| Website | theneedledrop |
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Anthony Nicholas Fantano[4] (/fænˈtænoʊ/fan-TAN-oh; born October 28, 1985) is an Americanmusic critic andinternet personality who runsThe Needle Drop, a YouTube channel with a tie-in website andTwitch[5] streaming channel. Self-billed as "The Internet's Busiest Music Nerd", as asocial media influencer Fantano discusses and reviews music from a variety of genres online.[6] He also runs the channelFantano where he talks about events in the music industry solo or with guests and conducts interviews.
Fantano was born and raised inWolcott, Connecticut.[7] He is ofSicilian andFrench Canadian descent.[8][9] As a teenager, Fantano became interested in politics through the work of the musicianJello Biafra, former lead singer of thepunk bandDead Kennedys, calling him "pretty much [his] political idol".[10] Fantano graduated fromSouthern Connecticut State University in 2008, earning aliberal arts degree concentrated injournalism,communications, andpolitical science.[11]
Fantano started his career in the mid-2000s as a music director for theSouthern Connecticut State University college radio station.[12]
In 2007, Fantano started working atConnecticut Public Radio (WNPR), where he hostedThe Needle Drop.[13] That same year, he launchedThe 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 aJay Reatard record.[7][14][15][13] In 2010, Fantano removed older reviews that contained music clips in order to avoid violations of theDigital Millennium Copyright Act.[7] At the time, he was working onThe Needle Drop at his college radio station, as well as at a pizza restaurant. In late 2011, he decided to pursueThe Needle Drop full-time, but kept affiliation with WNPR until 2014.[12][7][13]
Fantano was offered an album review show onAdult Swim but declined.[7] 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.[15] To earn enough money to pay his editor Austen Walsh, by November 2016, Fantano was recording 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 toSpin.[7]
In October 2017, an article by Ezra Marcus inThe Fader accused Fantano of promotingalt-right sentiments in videos on "thatistheplan". Marcus criticized Fantano for the use ofPepe the Frog memes (which had recently been labeledan alt-right symbol) and targetingfeminists.[16] After the article was released, multiple scheduled dates ofThe Needle Drop U.S. tour were canceled, with at least one ticket booking site for aBrooklyn tour date stating that their cancellation was due to theFader article.[17][18] Fantano produced a video response calling the article a "hit job". He disputed accusations of sympathizing with the alt-right and stated that the videos in question weresatirical. The article was deleted byThe Fader in March 2018, with both parties saying that the claims were settled.[19] 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 ofinternet humor, stating that the incident had led him to be more vocal in his advocacy forsocial justice issues.[20]
In July 2019, Fantano made a cameo appearance inLil Nas X's animated music video for theYoung Thug andMason Ramsey remix of "Old Town Road", appearing as a security guard for theArea 51 military installation (a reference to the "Storm Area 51" meme).[21][22] Later that year he curated a charity compilation,The Needle Drop LP, which consists of tracks performed by "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.[23]
On September 15, 2022, Fantano uploaded a video on his second channel jokingly claiming thatDrake had sent private messages to him onInstagram, specifically recommending Fantano avegan cookie recipe. In response, Drake posted his genuine messages to Fantano on Instagram Stories, which stated that Fantano's existence is a "light 1" and that the "1 is cause [he is] alive". Fantano later spoke about the exchange on an Instagram livestream, stating that the video was a "shitpost" and that he had no "hard feelings" toward Drake.[24][25][26]
Fantano garnered attention for his video onKanye West andTy Dolla Sign's albumVultures 1 in February 2024. Declaring the record "unreviewable trash," he talked about West'santisemitic views, particularly those expressed in his music, and general attitude preventing him from fully critiquing the record;[27] he also delved into discourse regarding West's fan base being generally hostile to criticism and negative reviews. The video subsequently received backlash from West's fans on social media.[28][29] In October 2025, Fantano collaborated with the American comedy rapperYuno Miles on the song "Take Me Back", also appearing in its music video.[30][31]
Albums are rated on a standard zero to ten scale, with Fantano deeming an album score of a five as "indifference", with scores above a five as him enjoying the record to varying degrees, and below five mostly disliking it. There are also additional qualifiers ("light", "decent", or "strong") with each number besides ten and typically zero. Fantano will also occasionally give a score outside of the standard scale, such as "NOT GOOD" for albums he deems unworthy of reviewing in full, believing the album to simply be "not good".[32][non-primary source needed] Fantano also uses the color of his flannel to show his rating, such as the red flannel for bad albums and a yellow/golden one for great albums.[33]
The Needle Drop won the 2011O Music Awards in the "Beyond the Blog" category.[42][43] In 2014, Nick Veronin ofWired said of Fantano: "Instead of deploying ten-dollar words to describe ariff orsynth 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".[3]
When asked about the merits of Fantano's reviews, veteran music criticRobert Christgau said in 2019:[44]
[Fantano] seems to have arrived at a plausible brand of 21st-century rockcrit taste that runs toward what I'll call darkprog [...] Nowhere near as insensible tohip-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 bookPerfect Sound Whatever, comedianJames 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."[15] 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.[20]
Beyond critical appraisals, Fantano's visibility within online music culture has been underscored by recurring appearances in mainstream discourse and internet memes. In September 2022, a tongue‑in‑cheek video on his second channel prompted a social‑media exchange withDrake that drew coverage from music and entertainment outlets.[45][46][47]
Fantano resides inConnecticut.[7] He is avegan, having swapped to the diet after initially going vegetarian in his late teens.[12] In March 2018, Fantano toldPolygon that he is a "free speech purist".[48] He endorsedBernie Sanders in the2020 United States presidential election.[49]
On July 24, 2023, Fantano was named as a defendant in a lawsuit from video game developerActivision over a viral audio clip he had recorded onTikTok about pizza slices. Activision claimed that Fantano had asked for "substantial monetary damages" for the company's use of the audio in an advertisement for customCrash Bandicoot trainers, or to be "prepared to defend a lawsuit".[50][51][52] On August 10, Activision dropped the lawsuit withprejudice, meaning it could not be refiled.[53]
Falling in Reverse frontmanRonnie Radke filed a defamation lawsuit against Fantano on August 20, 2024, claiming that the latter had "acted in malice" and "engaged in fraud" in posting commentary about the singer in a 2023 video titled "This Guy Sucks".[54][55] The case was dismissed on May 12, 2025, with Radke being ordered to pay Fantano's legal fees.[56]
The influential evangelist in question is the YouTuber named Anthony Fantano, 34, who has been speaking album and song reviews directly into a camera for more than a decade on The Needle Drop, his channel with 2.26 million subscribers, making him probably the most popular music critic left standing.
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