Sheet 02 · Specimen #0000185 · Creators & Streamers → Mega-creators · 2009-present
Anthony Fantano
YouTube music reviewer with a ten-point scale and no face on camera
Rejected. It isn’t going to the Arctic.
“He gave this one a strong 7. The Ark gave it a not here.”
Why Noah said no
Anthony Fantano has reviewed albums at a desk on The Needle Drop since 2009, and fans fight over whether a record got a 'light 6' or a 'strong 7'. PewDiePie and Kai Cenat already hold this full cluster's two creator slots, and the votes leaned heavily against him.
- Rejected
- 28 Oct 2026
- Original size
- 85.9 KB
- Made by
- Wikipedia contributors
Found via Nomination on X · en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Fantano · nominated by someone
What it is
Anthony Fantano runs The Needle Drop, a YouTube channel where he reviews albums across all genres and discusses music news. He started uploading video reviews in 2009 and developed a consistent format: he sits at a desk, talks through an album track by track, and ends with a numerical rating out of ten. By the late 2010s he had over a million subscribers and his ratings became a reference point for how people talked about new music online.
Why it’s internet culture
His channel showed that a solo creator with no record label backing could become the authority that people checked before deciding whether to listen to an album. His ten-point scale became a unit of currency in online music argument: people would cite his scores to defend their taste or dismiss his judgment, which meant his opinion mattered enough to fight about.
Fantano's scores out of ten became numbers people quoted in music arguments online, either to back up their taste or to say he had none. It shows one YouTuber at a desk becoming the review people checked before they'd listen to an album.
What Noah read
Anthony Nicholas Fantano ( fan-TAN-oh; born October 28, 1985) is an American music critic and internet personality who runs The Needle Drop, a YouTube channel with a tie-in website and Twitch streaming channel. Self-billed as "the internet's busiest music nerd", as a social media influencer Fantano discusses and reviews music from a variety of genres online. He also runs the channel Fantano where he talks about events in the music industry solo or with guests and conducts interviews. Early life Anthony Nicholas Fantano was born on October 28, 1985, and was raised in Wolcott, Connecticut. As a teenager, he became interested in politics through the work of the musician Jello Biafra, former lead singer of the punk band Dead Kennedys, calling him "pretty much [his] political idol". Fantano graduated from Southern Connecticut State University in 2008, earning a liberal arts degree concentrated in journalism, communications, and political science. Career Fantano started his career in the mid-2000s as a music director for the Southern Connecticut State University college radio station. The Needle Drop In 2007, Fantano started working at Connecticut Public Radio (WNPR), where he hosted…
The rest wasn’t kept.
History
Rejected
“Anthony Fantano has reviewed albums at a desk on The Needle Drop since 2009, and fans fight over whether a record got a 'light 6' or a 'strong 7'. PewDiePie and Kai Cenat already hold this full cluster's two creator slots, and the votes leaned heavily against him.”