Anthony Fantano

Background

Anthony Fantano was born in Connecticut, New England, on October 28, 1985. The Sicilian-American spent most of his teenage years in Wolcott, New Haven. He is a fan of Dead Kennedys’ ex-lead singer, Jello Biafra. His career began in the mid-2000s when he worked for the Southern Connecticut State University (S.C.S.U.) as the music director of their college radio station.

In 2007, Fantano worked for the Connecticut Public Radio (W.N.P.R.), where he hosted “The Needle Drop,” also launching the program through written reviews. He created “The Needle Drop” YouTube channel in 2009. Fantano began by posting a series of video reviews, starting with a record of Jay Reatard. A year later, he removed his older reviews, which contained music clips, to avoid infringing on copyrights (D.M.C.A.). At the time, while working on “The Needle Drop,” Fantano was also moonlighting at a pizza restaurant. By 2016, Fantano began posting content regularly on his secondary YouTube channel, “thatistheplan,” to earn enough money so he could pay Austin Walsh, his editor. The channel’s contents revolved around meme reviews and other miscellaneous videos that didn’t fall into the record review format.

Fantano’s secondary channel faced controversy in October 2017 when “The Fader” published an article accusing Fantano of promoting alt-right sentiments in one of his videos, causing numerous scheduled voices calling for “The Needle Drop” tour to be canceled. Fantano posted a video in response, referring to the article as a “hit job.” The article was eventually deleted by “The Fader,” after which both parties stated they had settled the claims. Despite these issues, Fantano had gained one million subscribers by the end of the year. In 2019, Fantano created “The Needle Drop L.P.,” a charity compilation consisting of artists who have been featured or received favorable reviews in the past.