Anthony Fantano – Biography, Wife, Age, Height, Net Worth

Quick Facts

Anthony Fantano is an American video producer, journalist and music critic. He is best known for his video blog, The Needle Drop which focuses on song reviews and issues relating to artistes, musicians, and the music industry. Fantano has described himself as the internet’s busiest music nerd. He reviews a wide variety of music genres which include hip-hop, indie, metal, rock, pop electronic music, folk, jazz and experimental. He does his reviews through his YouTube channel and website. He earned an O Music Award in the Beyond the Blog category in 2011.

Biography (Age)

Anthony Fantano was born on October 28, 1985, in Wolcott, Connecticut, USA. He was raised in Connecticut. Fantano is of Sicilian and Canadian descent. He graduated from the Southern Connecticut State University where he majored in Political Science and Journalism. During his time at Connecticut State, he became music director of the college radio station. He maintains that his experience at the college radio station greatly expanded is taste in music even though he had always been a music lover.

By 2007 he had begun working at Connecticut Public Radio where he became a host of The Needle Drop. Later that year he launched The Needle Drop blog where he gave text-based reviews. By 2009 he had started make video reviews on YouTube.

Over the years Fantano grew his YouTube followers to well over 500,000 subscribers and his videos have been viewed over 100 million times. Fantano’s rating system involves assigning an album or track a figure on a scale of 0 and 10 with varying descriptions such as strong or light to match each of the numbers on the scale. So far only a handful of songs or albums have gotten a score of 10.

‘s To Pimp a Butterfly and Swans’ To Be Kind are two of them. He does a special review of albums considered classics towards the end of every year during his Classics week. He also uses the classics week to review his worst and best albums of the year. Fantano features an alter ego called Cal Chuchesta on some of his reviews. On occasion, he would release the review of an album in the form of a parody to it.

Fantano and The Needle Drop have won a few awards for his music reviews including On The Rise which is hosted by YouTube and a Beyond the Blog Award in the 2011 O Music Awards.

In 2017, the music magazine Fader posted an article accusing Anthony Fantano of having racist sentiments and an alt-right bent. The article sighted the videos from Fantano’s other YouTube channel called thatistheplan portraying these racist and alt-right tendencies, for instance, his use of memes of Pepe the Frog which has been attributed to be a symbol of the alt-right.

Fantano on his part released a video in response stating that the said racist or alt-right videos were only meant to be satirical and he has always treated his reviews of songs and albums on their merit without any racial or political considerations. He pointed out that he has made harsh criticisms of low rated songs and albums by white musicians as he has by artists of other races. Not longer after Fantano’s video was released to clarify things the Fader article was deleted from the website. The article’s writer claimed received several insults and threats from Fantano’s fans for writing the article.

Fantano has described himself as a liberal in terms of his political views and is said to be a social democrat. He has often favored such policies as raising the minimum wage to 15 US dollars per hour which represents a living wage and he also favors a single-payer healthcare insurance system as obtained in some European countries. He has always taken an anti-war stance and identifies himself as an atheist. Fantano is vegan. Prior to becoming vegan, he had been a vegetarian for several years.

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Anthony Fantano has been featured on several publications for his vlogging prowess. One of the earliest was a feature by The Guardian in 2011.

Net Worth

Anthony Fantano’s net worth is an estimated $500,000. The bulk of his net worth draws from his earnings from his YouTube channels. With a fledgling career, this figure is sure to rise.

Who is Anthony Fantano’s Wife?

Anthony Fantano is married to Dominique Fantano. She sometimes appears on his review videos giving her own assessment of songs and albums. Their relationship proves she has been a big part of his success story.

Height and Body Stats

Anthony Fantano is 6 feet (1.85 m) tall. There is no information available in the public domain about his weight and other body statistics.

Also Read: Top 10 Richest People in the world with full biography and details.