A Solid 8 Interview with Anthony Fantano

Words by Matthew Spence:

Cupid must have laced his love arrow with the toxicity of a Jerry Springer couple cuz sent the dawn of opinions: creatives’ and critics’ relationship resembles that of twin-sided magnets trying to touch. Hopefully, the Grammy union offers insurance to cover couples therapy cuz the amount of friction between the two can lead to an arson charge. If you’re stuck in the middle like a Swiss friend, it’s easy to see the gray in a black-and-white ordeal. You want to share a piece of empathy towards the artist because they (more often than not) give their all and put themselves in their body of work.

Crafting art is therapy in some shape or form, especially if it involves telling their story and putting vulnerability to the front of the class. However, there’s sympathy for the other party as the “death of the artist” concept activates. Once you put out your work to the world, it’s no longer yours. Even if 99% of the world loves what you do, accepting that there’s a 1% out there who doesn’t is inevitable. No need to love it, just tolerate it. Is every opinion out there an educated critique? Not necessarily, but whether it ranges from breaking down the mixing on a track that felt raspy to a bottom-of-the-shoe “that shit was trash,” validity is still there in some shape or form. If we sucked the dick of every artist, musically, we wouldn’t be getting shit done. Autopilot, stagnation, or even regression in a capacity. We’re all fans of music. At the end of the day, artists want to give the best to their fans, and fans want the best for and of their artists. Everyone wants to win g.

Yet, the dizziness of going in circles with one another is all the day’s work between the two. Will there ever be a meeting of the eyes? Time will tell. However, there’s one music critic who’s willing to stay in the loop no matter the weather, Musicthony Critictano.

Anthony Fantano: Music reviewer, critic, and fit lord, Fantano has undoubtedly been a significant part of music and internet culture for a decade plus now. Founding theneedledrop brand in the late 2000s, it grew from a blog, rising as a YouTube channel, to now being a power estate in music culture. The CT native has reviewed his way up to the top. With his infamous rating system that some are still trying to gauge and forever altering the perception of flannels to where every Halloween for him ends up looking like Eminem’s 2000 VMA performance.

Fantano’s Laws of Attraction is like an ironic t-shirt slogan, “Pissing people off is a 24/7 job,” because whether he likes it or not, unknowingly or intentionally, audiences don’t even beat around the bush anymore; they just torch the whole thing and hunt for the score. Whether it’s a fatal zero or an antidotal 10, it’ll cause more online turbulence than a Ticketmaster waiting lobby battle royale. No matter where he stands on the side of music history, with his reviews/number scores, whether he overall likes a project or despises it, there’s going to be a borough of people ready to hiss; and depending on the artist, public consensus, and fanbase, that borough will be crammed with 20% of the US population.

But that’s another day and another album for Anthony. Over his 15 years with his channel and site, he’s managed to run up on people’s algorithms like CJ and test everyone’s patience from hip-hop elitists to pop lovers to alt heads, ruffling the feathers of the biggest fan bases out in culture and pissing off the biggest artists themselves. Fantano hops back and forth on everyone’s op lists to where they have legal joint custody over him (who gets him on weekends? OVO owls or Swifties?)

However, this is far from trying to paint him as some rage-bait troll (not that he shies away from a good troll) who is disputatious just to be disputatious. In fact, it’s quite unfortunate how often his reviews get swept in the tide by the headlines and score when it’s an in-depth piece that’s concise, sharp, and filled with KO statements/sentiments that really whacks the mole of the point he’s trying to make. Honest and not afraid to be harsh, especially in a time where discourse about critical journalism is desperately prayed for, Fantano is what many probably feel is “The Last of a Dying Breed,” so to speak. Hell, because of his transparency, he’s gained the respect of many in the industry. Some are probably secretly hoping to get the rare 10 that only a select few have gotten to see (Be in a special class with Kid Cudi, who’s seen both ends of the rating system). Dude will cry to your album and still give you a seven. Tough love?

Every year becomes more eventful for the melon. Interviewing some of the best, biggest, and upcoming names out there, reviews that move the needle (absolutely no fucking pun intended), Anthony Fantano built an empire, but what keeps it all going isn’t lust for a spotlight but his evergreen love of the arts. Music, yo. Jack White said it all starts in a little room; now he’s in bigger rooms, and also his bedroom. Over here, in my bedroom on a random weekday in May, I got the chance to video call the one and only and ask him some questions about a bunch of stuff and talk about a bunch of stuff, ranging from Beastie Boys to Twitter and other stuff that may or may not make the interview. It’s an interview…. Cal couldn’t make it.

What’s a music conspiracy you like to entertain, no matter how far-fetched it is?

That’s a good question. I don’t know; that might be a terrible question for me off the top of my head… I don’t know, actually. I guess. Like, recently with all the Michael Jackson stuff coming to light again, I was sort of surprised to see how many people, generally and people in my feed were, sort of, you know, skeptical of the allegations against him, and I always thought there was probably validity there even if it didn’t go quite as far as what he was being accused of in the trial. I think even what he was happy to admit to was very weird and inappropriate and not something your average person should be engaging in, and to me, that’s like far enough to be weird.

What do you prefer: more CDs or vinyl?

I don’t really have a preference. Like broadly speaking, there are some albums I prefer to go after on vinyl if it’s from a particular artist, and maybe it was like, “I know it was like recorded completely analog from start to finish,” or “If I know it’s a record that was put out or at least in that time period where vinyl was primarily the format and intended originally to be on that format,” but for the most part, I don’t really have a preference. When I buy something, I have to hear it. Whether it’s on record or on CD, there isn’t too much of a difference for me. There are some CDs in the early era via the format that sounded sketchy and thin, but for the most part, CDs sound fantastic, and you know there are records that artists come out with today that are completely a digital release from front to back. The master for the vinyl is the master for streaming CDs, and it sounds like crap. There are so many factors hinging on the sound quality of the album; just because you’re buying the album on vinyl doesn’t guarantee you’re going to get the best sound.

Streaming/digital consumption is the everyday norm now, but at what point did you recognize or do you recognize the reality of being comfortable with caution [music could vanish and erasure of history]? People could get too comfortable and be spoon-fed music versus seeking adventure. How much do you try to make the message clear to your fans and audience?

I’m not fully sure how to answer, but I will say that that dynamic is like partially what I think influenced me a little bit more to think about my physical collection, you know, not just the way I’ve seen certain albums really have a track missing or certain records for the way that you said with MTV News—not even just MTV News, but I feel like a lot of the blogs/tastemakers of the blog era and early music journalism. early of the internet era, the way a lot of those sites have gone down or have been sort of lost, and I think at the time, I think at the time we all sort of like in the late 2000s, early 2010s, like presumed like it’s on the internet, it’s here forever, it’s not going to go anywhere, and you know, then lo and behold, like all of these years and years and years of sort of like articles and commentaries and, you know, people making a count of like the way culture and these different music scenes are moving is like all kind of like gone now. There’s also simultaneously a lot of these music writers; only a few, I think, are kind of there.

There’s a handful now that I think are trying to change that. Chris Deville, being one, who wrote a book recently called Such Great Heights that I read, and I did an interview with him about it. where he was like trying to make note of the way that indie music kind of became commercialized from the ’90s through the 2000s to kind of reach this certain point of mainstream exposure, and while I think his book is a really good start it does touch down on a lot of sort of like essential kind of points, you know, in the genre’s kind of like growth and exposure. There’s a lot of super sort of underground stuff that started underground throughout that whole period of time that didn’t really get noted in his book, which I understand you only have so much room for so much stuff; it is already like a pretty thick and thorough sort of bird’s-eye view of, again, that commercialization that happened over that course of time, but there’s still, like, so much stuff that at the time was, like, pretty damn relevant that for the most part is nearly dead in terms of broader discussion or popularity and sort of underground music circles right now.

So you know again, sort of like the realization and kind of the dynamic that you’re talking about has like kind of made me appreciate a little more that the idea of, like, not that I personally feel like I need to have everything physically, but it’s made me think more about, like, if I didn’t have this, like, would I be upset?

While you have to consistently remind people that it’s just your opinion (for when they disagree with you), how often do you have to remind your followers to have their own opinion (for when they only agree and take your word as bond)?It’s funny, I’m not trying to deny the fact that there are people out there who like to take my word as gospel and believe what I say. I know they exist. I’ve literally been told by some of the people whose record stores I go in to shoot content. There have been people who have come in with, like, lists in their hands of “These are all Anthony Fantano’s 10-out-of-10 albums.” How many of these do you have? I want to buy them!!” <Laughs>, which to me is crazy, but simultaneously, I guess when it comes to gaining taste or having taste, you have to start somewhere. No one starts with taste; you have to start somewhere, you know what I mean? I know these people exist, and it’s probably just sort of like my internet feed doing this, but in terms of the discourse that I see in the discourse, I’m usually confronted with in my mentions when it comes to people professing my opinions. “Anthony Fantano has the smartest opinions of all time.” Those people are not showing up in my comments to be like “Yeah, you’re the best.” You know, if those people are showing up anywhere, it’s usually probably in the comments of people who hold opinions different than them or whatever, you know. Again, I know they’re out there, but I’m not usually being confronted with that; I’m usually being confronted with other people who disagree with me, you know, or sort of like are getting bent out of shape because they don’t have the same opinion that I do or vice versa. So I mean, I find myself having to remind them that it’s just my opinion at the end of the day more often than I am. The flip side of that, the way my algorithm is, I’m just not confronted with as much.

How has your career evolved you as a person? Any life lessons you learned?

Yeah, for sure it sounds corny, but I’m reminded recently. I’ve gone to see the Wachowskis’ 4K reissue of the Speed Racer movie, where the whole point of the movie is the corruption of the racing industry, and Racer, at some point, he’s like, “It doesn’t matter if we change racing.” What matters will be letting racing change us, and it was like, “Yeah, you know, it’s like I, as much as there are a lot of things about music and the music industry that I fucking hate and rail against all the time, music has changed me in a lot of ways. I feel like it’s giving me purpose. I feel like it’s giving me something to be passionate about. I feel like it’s broadened and enlightened my perspective in so many ways.” I mean, I know there are a lot of people that don’t sort of treat music like this, but you know, I feel like music can be a window into, sort of like, other people’s feelings and, sort of, perspectives who come from different walks of life than me.

You know, it can be something just to kind of put on in the background and vibe to and just to kind of set the mood, but it doesn’t always have to be that; it can be, you know, a way to engage with, sort of, again, feelings and perspectives that are not your own and sort of gain greater and broader understanding of emotional experiences, and, in terms of literally doing my day-to-day job, I feel it’s given me something to be sort of focused on and consistent about; you know, it has shown me things like work ethic and, sort of, like, given me hard life lessons in terms of, sort of, like, avoiding untrustworthy people and weirdos. Avoiding untrustworthy people are weirdos. You know, there are a lot of weirdos in the music industry and in, sort of, the internet content creator space, and sometimes I cannot, personally, I will say, probably. Like, one of my worst qualities is that I’m just very bad at, sort of, reading red flags from people. Sometimes I will give people maybe more than the benefit of the doubt or have more of a tendency to sort of see potential in people and sort of base the way that I interact with them upon that, versus who they actually are, and I’m most likely going to continue being so, you know.

Out of the 7 days of the week, how many of them are you worried about trending for the wrong/negative reasons?

Honestly, I try not to think too much about it because that’s the way the internet economy works now; it’s just constant outrage, and that’s not to say people aren’t angry, generally speaking, for valid reasons on a lot of different topics that happen to trend on Twitter on a regular basis. But you know, with the way that the platform works now, people are literally monetized and incentivized to say the most sort of like out-of-pocket offensive, dead-brain, stupid shit they could possibly muster because, you know, what the fuck does it matter to them? They’re running some stupid-ass anonymous account, and nothing that they say or do is going to tie back to them if it ends up getting them, sort of like, you know, millions of hits and sort of like bits of engagement, and they make like hundreds of dollars off of all of that. Sort of like Ferber, at the end of the month, they don’t give a fuck; you know, it’s money in their pocket.

So you know it’s like I’m constantly being subjected to it; it’s really transparent because not only do I see the moments when I am trending and it’s like kind of controversial and people are like getting pissed off and kind of jumping down each other’s throats over it, but I also see all the moments that people try to manufacture into controversial sorts of bits that it’s like, “Okay, you’re just like so desperately trying to make this a thing, and it’s like failing.” I remember recently reviewing Mike and Earl’s album that I had reviewed. You know, not only am I well aware of the fact that that was like not a very complimentary review and there were some lines in there that, you know, I can acknowledge were like mean-spirited, but I saw this one guy, if he’s like one or two or three guys, sort of like reposting the same clip over and over and over of me comparing the album to Lucky but, like, you know, just like having better lyrics or whatever, and like the same couple of people reposting this clip over and over, saying, like, “I can’t believe Anthony.” It’s like such a weird kind of like fucking hive mind, that sort of thing, like with the sort of stuff.

With such mass consumption of music, do you often/how often do you take breaks from music (days of quiet or etc)?Definitely not for a whole day. I mean, sometimes I will sort of maybe take a few hours or something just kind of like decompress or just kind of relax or just kind of allow nothing to be going on in my brain. But if I am taking a break from anything, usually it’s from sort of like consuming or listening to music in a kind of critical way. You know, that’s usually what I maybe need to take a break from, and you know, if I am taking a break from that, I’m still listening to music; I’m usually listening to something that I already know that I like or I know that I’m going to like, and I can just sort of put it on without having to consciously assess it, you know, in a way to where I’m sort of thinking, “What am I going to say in a review about this?” You know what I mean? Because sometimes when I’m listening to stuff and I’m really kind of pulling it apart in my head, I’m also trying to like think of how to put it to words so that how I’m feeling about it and what is or is not working kind of like make sense, you know, for the thinking of it kind of like going out to an audience of people.

Some artists who you feel unfairly get put under the “scaring the hoes away” umbrella?

Artists who I think are unfairly scaring the hoes? You know I know, like recently when Doechii sort of pulled up with that clip of her listening to Westside Gunn, it’s like it’s always made me sort of like reframe in my head what people sort of mean by that, and it’s sort of funny how, like, I guess maybe I’ll say in a sense that all the “scaring the hoes” discourse is unfair. Skewed to some degree because more often than not, the person who’s making that assessment is a man. Like, how are we allowing what is or is not scaring the hoes music to be dictated by men? We’re letting men say what music women do and don’t like. It doesn’t make any fucking sense. Meanwhile, there’s actually, you know, a real sense of what I think is like the actual specter looming over this conversation, and that’s Scaring the Bros’ music, and I think there is Scaring the Bros.

Scaring the Bros’ music. I think Megan [Thee Stallion] is scaring the bros’ music. I think JPEGMAFIA is increasingly becoming Scaring the bros’ music every single time I see him pull up now; it’s like “he’s corny”. Sexyy Red is scaring the bros’ music, like these artists who, like, every single time a song of theirs gets posted, crop up somewhere, like every midwit man you can think of pops up and is like, “This is terrible,” and you know not to say that in some instances those people, like, can’t be right, but you know it’s not so much the dislike as it is the desperation that these people need to sort of feel that they have to signal to the world to make sure everybody knows that they don’t like it, which, like, you know, you’re not a professional critic, you’re not a social media commentator and you’re not a known quantity in any way whatsoever. Why the fuck do you think anybody cares whether or not you like or dislike Sexyy Red? You know, sort of like voicing support and sort of like saying, “Oh, you know, I kind of want more of this, you know? But like, you’re really going to waste your time sort of making sure everybody knows that you think JPEGMafia is a cornball, especially when there are already 200 other comments in the comments section posting the same cornball gif over and over and over. Push the needle a little bit further and kind of like put it over the edge and be like, “Yeah, that’s the one that like really convinced everyone he was a cornball.” Until then, everybody else is kind of like on the fence, wandering the walls.

When did you realize you had to be mindful of your voice and impact?

I think it came with just the growth of my platform, you know what I mean, and kind of realizing the influence and responsibility of that and kind of curating the way I talk about stuff or the way I engage with certain stuff, knowing what kind of impact it could potentially have. I used to mostly just write and talk about underground stuff exclusively and actively avoid mainstream releases. But then, over time, as my audience slowly grew and I got people requesting certain reviews and asking about some of those records, obviously, you know, sort of like mainstream releases, I felt obliged to do it because I had these people who sort of cared about my videos.

I wanted to make them excited about my videos, and I figured, you know, kind of feeding their demands as long as they were sensible would only be for the better, and, you know, then there are things like, kind of grew. I came to realize people take my opinion really seriously, and maybe even if there’s, like, an underground artist that I see a lot of potential in, sort of reviewing one of their early releases out of the gate and giving it a super negative review, even if I think there’s room down the road for them to make better music. Ultimately, not that great a thing because I know there are some people who maybe don’t take an artist or future work quite as seriously if I gave it a negative review sometimes, and I think that kind of fucking sucks, especially when it comes to artists who I’ve reviewed like four, five, or six times at this point. I’m always sort of like hoping for the moment, even when I do just a record that is sort of a bounce back, and you know, certainly there have been artists who done that maybe done like you maybe put out like a few records that I just thought were okay or were bad, but then kind of came through with the record that I thought was really good. It happens, so I’m trying to get myself back on track here, you know, and it’s not that I feel like if a young artist is sort of like coming out of the gate, I have to be ultra positive to whatever it is I’m reviewing, but if they’re still sort of like on the come-up these days and I don’t really have anything super positive to say, maybe I’ll just sort of like avoid it in favor of something that I enjoy a little bit more.

Another thing that I have sort of come to think about a lot more is what I’m platforming in terms of what an artist vocally supports or puts out there with their platform and with their music. This is something that hasn’t really been something, or was something I didn’t really need to put too much thought into back when my channel was first starting, because nobody was fucking watching me, you know. It’s like in the wake of me being uninterested in, you know, reviewing Ye’s Vultures 1 and 2 album cycles, a lot of people, you know, were like, “You reviewed Bursa, and it’s his comeback album from back in the day.” Like, yeah, when my channel had a thousand fucking subscribers, there was no sort of conception in my mind because it was in the case that, like, my review of his work could, you know, expand his popularity anymore, bringing it to any eyes or ears that he didn’t otherwise. Plus, in the review, I acknowledged the guys like a racist fuck. You know that about him from the outset.

If anything, when you actually go back into the oldest comments of that review, the review is actually flooded with his fans who hate me for acknowledging that he’s a racist piece of shit. Nowadays, when I’m reviewing something, if I hear that sort of thing about a band or an artist or whatever, even if I do think there is something interesting about their music to some degree, I would much rather not platform it or push it. You know, there have been a few instances of me sort of taking down a review. That’s not to say if you make music and you don’t have the same ideology as me, like, I’m not going to cover your music. There are a lot of artists that I cover on a regular basis that I don’t agree with on a lot of things politically or socially, you know, something that I know but I don’t really feel like I’m in the position to speak on because it’s like it’s not really my place, I think, to put it out there. You know, I think at this point, you know, the silence is inside the deafening, but you know, there are a lot of artists who I know, not on a personal level, but I know through either sort of interactions with them or people who I know who know them, who are just like, I swear, like the most hardcore Zionists you can imagine, and these are like indie bands. I have still covered their music, and I think it’s a really gross position for them to hold, but at least from what I can tell, they know that their position is like probably shitty and everybody would hate it. They just don’t say anything about it, you know, so it’s like they don’t use their platform to contribute negatively to the discourse at least, and you know, if you want to hold that really crappy position, I guess you’re entitled to it. It’s beyond me at this point, you know.

I just wouldn’t cover. But also it would be really daunting because I would have to, on top of going into all of the music, be doing some kind of research on every artist I talk about to make sure that, like, they don’t have any allegations, they’re not a bigot, they’re not a sexist, they’re not this, they’re not that. You know, it’s like I can’t, you know, use that as sort of like a decider of every single thing that, you know, I decide to engage with a review. With that being said, if there’s a smaller artist routinely using your music as a platform to push extremist stuff, to push, you know, bigoted shit, I’m going to avoid it like the plague, and if you know you’re a larger artist who has a platform, you’re actively using that platform; it’s not even just sort of like a matter of having a reputation in your past that you know a given behavior, but if you’re actively using your platform right now to poison the social well, especially against like marginalized groups and the orientations that are already on the back foot in so many ways politically right now, I’m going to either call it out or avoid your music entirely. Or, highlight in some way in the reviews so people know what they’re getting into.

I’m not warning against you, you know; you still have a copy of, like, the first Crystal Castles CD or whatever. Like, go ahead and listen to it. I don’t give a fuck. You know, in the wake of all this Michael Jackson stuff, if you have like a random spare copy of Thriller in your CD collection sitting there, you really want to listen to Billie Jean. I don’t give a shit; you know it’s like, who cares? It’s not hurting anybody, you know? It’s not like doing anybody a disservice by just listening to a Michael Jackson CD you already own or whatever, and the guy has passed away. There’s not really anything that any of us can do about any of his misdeeds, whatever you know they happen to have been, but you know, am I going to actively go on my platform and use it to celebrate and push people who have been accused of the sort of things that he was?

Final question: hope for the 10 years of music/culture?That people can stop getting less self-conscious and that we can sort of like break some of these algorithmic cycles that are like narrowing things down a little bit too much and get down to some sort of like personal and community curation You know, and maybe some people might read that as me kind of having a personal bone to pick because the more people sort of just sort of automatically accept, you know, recommendations from algorithms, the less they’re probably listening to me, but I just wish people would start listening to just other people a little bit more. In terms of what they’re getting into and what they’re enjoying, because music is about collective community, you know, and part of the way that we sort of like understand, perceive, and interpret it is based on the groups of people it’s appealing to or what kind of places or spaces.

The music is most popular, and it gets performed where it does well, and to what sort of walks of life or perspectives it appeals to. It speaks to you, you know. Without that context, the music just kind of exists in a vacuum, which, of course, like, for sure, there’s a lot of music that can be enjoyed in that way, but I don’t personally think it can be fully appreciated in that way, you know? I know that, like, a lot of my reviews are more sort of a breakdown of, like, musically what’s happening and production-wise what’s happening; it’s not so much a cultural assessment, but, you know, that doesn’t make that element of the music and the way it appeals and where it succeeds and who it succeeds with any less important. I feel like hopefully people sort of start caring a little bit more about music scenes locally and local music acts, regardless of what sort of like shape or form they take. It’s like maybe focus less on kind of saving up all that money that you’re working to go out to that really expensive festival bill with, like, you know, dozens and dozens of bands on it, and instead sort of like look about, you know, your own immediate area and see what band might be playing down the road for 10 bucks or something, you know? Because it’s in those spaces that anything cool you might see down the line at a festival, that’s where it all starts, you know? So yeah…