The Needle Drop is a music-related video blog created in 2007 by American critic, producer, journalist Anthony Fantano, self-described as "the Internet's busiest music nerd".
Fantano's website and YouTube channel reviews a variety of music genres, including hip hop, rock, metal, indie, electronic music and experimental. The channel won the Beyond the Blog award at the MTV O Music Awards.
Video The Needle Drop
Anthony Fantano
Early life
Anthony Fantano (; born October 28, 1985) grew up in Connecticut and spent his teenage years in Wolcott. As a child he had a desire to become a cartoonist, stating he was a fan of The Simpsons and that he still enjoys cartoons from today such as Adventure Time and Regular Show.
Fantano was introduced to independent music in the early 2000s which eventually influenced him to start The Needle Drop. He has said, "I had a friend of mine on Livejournal-lol, I know-back in the early 00s who used to do these long writeups about certain artists and she turned me on to a few that were pretty great. It made me want to do the same, share the musical experience on the internet. It didn't really turn into "reviews" until I tried doing YouTube in 2009, which I only did as an experiment because my blog and podcast weren't making much traction at the time."
Career
Fantano started his career the mid-2000s as a music director for the Southern Connecticut State University college radio station. He stated, "I've always loved music, but working there got me turned into a lot of different styles, and got me pushing my tastes into different areas". In 2007, Fantano started working at Connecticut Public Radio in which he hosted The Needle Drop. That same year, he launched The Needle Drop in text reviews, eventually starting as video reviews in 2009. At the time, he was working on The Needle Drop, at the college radio station, and at a pizza restaurant. In late 2011, he decided to pursue The Needle Drop full-time.
He was interviewed at SXSW in 2011 about the rise of music vlogging, along with Matt Galloway of the Rock It Out! blog and Michael Roffman, president and editor-in-chief of Consequence of Sound. In March 2011, he was featured in an article from The Guardian also about the rise of music vlogging.
Personal life
Fantano lives in Middletown, Connecticut. He is a vegan, having grown into the diet since becoming vegetarian around 18-19. He is married.
In 2018, The Fader removed an article attempting to map out Fantano's political ideology with videos from his alternate channel, Thatistheplan. This followed 2017 accusations of alt-right sentiment on Fantano's alternate channel, which he denied, and ultimately lead to the termination of Thatistheplan that year.
Discography
Albums
- Anthony FanFiction Vol.1 (2015)
- The New CALassic (2015, as Cal Chuchesta)
Singles
- Cal 2 B (2013, as Cal Chuchesta)
- Mykey Come Back (2015, as Cal Chuchesta)
- Cal Chuchesta Feat. Pink Guy & NFKRZ - Panda (Remix) (2016, as Cal Chuchesta)
- Coin Star (2018, as Cal Chuchesta)
Mixtapes
- $CALxTAPExONE$ (2013, as Cal Chuchesta)
- ?CALxTAPExTWO? (2013, as Cal Chuchesta)
- #CALxTAPExTHREE# (2013, as Cal Chuchesta)
Maps The Needle Drop
Notable reviews and ratings
Rating system
Fantano rates albums and tracks on a scale from 0 to 10, with an accompanying adjective, either "light", "decent", or "strong", for further qualification of its score. Occasionally he will do parody reviews of albums such as I'm Gay (I'm Happy) by Lil B, Born This Way by Lady Gaga, Unknown Death 2002 by Yung Lean, Mastermind by Rick Ross, Dark Sky Paradise by Big Sean, August 26 by Post Malone, Ether by B.o.B, Gold Cobra by Limp Bizkit, and Sketches of Brunswick East by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Fantano has only given three perfect 10/10 ratings in his reviews so far (The Money Store by Death Grips, To Be Kind by Swans, and To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar). Additionally, Fantano will also review albums that are considered "classic" music releases. These are reviewed without a rating during a yearly segment known as Classics Week.
In July 2016, a new rating dubbed "Not Good" was introduced, which is not based on a numeric score and is assigned to albums which Fantano does not feel like giving a proper negative review on. The first album to receive the rating was Desiigner's New English. He also did a near-unedited 50-minute "Not Good" review of Angelic 2 the Core by Corey Feldman, in which he dubbed it the album the worst of 2016.
Contemporary albums with a perfect rating (10/10)
Albums with a score of 0/10
References
Primary sources
In the text these references are preceded by a double dagger (?):
External links
- Official website
- The Needle Drop's channel on YouTube
- Anthony Fantano at discogs
- Cal Chuchesta at discogs
Source of article : Wikipedia
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