Anthony Fantano (left) poses with a fan for a photograph.
The Internet’s Busiest Music Nerd isn’t a title Anthony Fantano takes lightly. The music reviews on his YouTube channel theneedledrop have become synonymous with music fandom around the world, so much so that they brought him to the shores of Australia.
I recently travelled to the Toff, immensely excited by the prospect of an orchestrated talk from Fantano on everything and anything music.
As I have with the majority of Fantano’s music reviews I’ve watched, I was sure to come away with a greater understanding of the music industry, a new perspective on the music that is being produced today or what the future may hold for musicians and fans.
These expectations, for the most part, were left unsatisfied.
In the densely mediated world of online music opinion, Fantano’s CV as a music reviewer – dare I say, tastemaker – reads 10 out of 10. Since January 2009, theneedledrop channel has received close to 60 million views and boasts an impressive 340,000 subscribers.
Never to be one shy of bombastic, sarcastically delivered self-indulgence, in his vlog post ‘Anthony Fantano is a regular guy’, Fantano responds to criticism of his credentials as a music reviewer with the facts.
“I may have shot and edited hundreds of music reviews since I started this channel, earned a quarter of a million subs (subscribers) … I may have interviewed Mick Jagger. I may have been interviewed by Nardwuar, as well as, the Wire magazine. I may have won a Beyond the Blog Award from MTV…”
The list goes on.
Though, having relevant and perceptive opinions about music isn’t purely measured by critical acclaim and industry exclusivity.
As Fantano goes on to say: “I started this thing with absolutely no industry ties whatsoever and have continued to be able to do what I want on my own terms … You might not always agree with what I say but … I promise that there is nothing informing my opinion of a record other than what I sincerely feel about the music on it.”
There is irony in the fact that what makes him so compelling as a music critic was lacking in a talk directed to fans won over by his music reviews.
In his second talk to Melburnians, Fantano addressed issues music fans are all too familiar with.
Fantano took aim at U2’s collaboration with iTunes that forced the popular Irish band’s latest album down the throats of millions of iTunes users with an automatic free download.
“We own these products, but Apple’s made it very clear that we don’t own what’s on them. Which is why I think it’s very important to act very pissed off when this sort of thing happens,” he said.
An endearing quality of Fantano is he speaks as a music fan with a superb knowledge base, avoiding the linguistic pretension commonplace in the music media.
Still, his expression of disgust merely reciprocated public outcry and added nothing new to the conversation.
Before his Melbourne appearance Fantano featured at Brisbane’s BigSound festival where he was joined by a local star-studded cast including the editor of FasterLouder, Sarah Smith, and assistant editor of TheVine and Pitchfork contributor, Jake Cleland.
There is no denying Fantano can hold his own in the face of strong opinion and fiery debate.
In his album review of Cloud Nothing’s 2014 release, Here and Nowhere Else, he makes fellow critic Sami Jarroush of the rockitoutblog look quite amateur.
At his best, a sharp, insightful and enlightening understanding has won over fellow music enthusiasts and industry figures alike. In Melbourne, without a panel or facilitator to bounce off and without his usual conciseness – a benefit of the transitions and cuts of vlogging – this effort was found wanting.
Extensive time devoted to the mildly fascinating, then unengaging story of Matt Farley, who has produced over 16,000 songs online, left much to be desired.
Fantano’s advice for musicians wanting to get their music out there came from a good place.
“Music promotion right now is 100 per cent internet. In-person is dead,” he said.
“If you’re going to print out a hundred flyers and go down town and try to staple all over the telephone poles I’m telling you, you’re wasting your time.”
Yet, the writing has been on the wall for a while now. This is no revelation.
The talk ended with a Q&A.
One fan asked Fantano for his opinion on the lack of representation of women in genres like grindcore and power violence, likening the current scene to a “boy’s club”.
He engaged with the question but I didn’t leave with any better understanding of the place women have within the music industry and how it can be changed.
“If you say nasty things to a girl, that disincentivises her from potentially making some really fantastic music that you might connect with really deeply, you’re only hurting the community you’re participating in,” Fantano said.
“The mere fact that we kind of treat it [women in music] as a novelty kind of perpetuates the fact that there are so few women in music.”
Rather than seizing the opportunity Fantano skirted around the ingrained nature of sexism within the music industry.
He later tweeted:
Who was that grindcore girl who asked a question at the Toff show? She’s my hero and I wanna talk to her?
— Anthony Fantano (@theneedledrop) September 16, 2014
Hearing Fantano talk wasn’t all that I thought it would be, and I didn’t come away magically enlightened. On reflection it was disappointing.
Saying that, Fantano truly warrants his title as the Internet’s Busiest Music Nerd. He’ll continue to be the person I trust and invest in when it comes to music reviews, ideas and debates.
And as Fantano said, “Critics, they used to be gatekeepers, but they’re not gatekeepers anymore, they’re more like guides, especially in an age where music saturation is just such a huge issue. Me personally, I’m much more interested in just kind of turning you onto something that might have passed through your radar as opposed to making sure that every band I like becomes the next big thing.”
