Anthony Fantano on the Exploitative Music Industry and Zohran's Rap Career

Current Affairs

Politics, Culture, Government, Comedy, News

4.6 • 673 Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Anthony Fantano is the biggest music critic on YouTube, and the self-described “internet’s busiest music nerd.” The New York Times calls him “The Only Music Critic Who Matters (if You’re Under 25),” and his show The Needle Drop has over 3 million subscribers. Fantano is known for his provocative takes, like “AI Music is Evil” and “Taylor Swift is a Coward.” He joined Current Affairs editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson and associate editor Alex Skopic to talk about the state of the music industry, how streaming platforms exploit artists, and whether Zohran Mamdani should rap again.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Current Affairs. My name is Nathan Robinson. I am the editor-chief of Current Affairs
0:05.4	Magazine here with my colleague from the other side of the office, Kurt Affairs Associate
0:13.3	Editor Alex Scopic. Hello, Alex. Hello. And it is our great pleasure today to be joined by Mr. Anthony Fantano.
0:24.2	He runs the YouTube channel The Needle Drop, as well as is secondary and almost as popular YouTube channel Fantano.
0:33.6	He has been called by the New York Times the only music critic who matters if you're under 25.
0:41.0	Spin magazine has said he's today's most successful music critic.
0:47.4	The New York Times quoted someone saying, if you told somebody on the street, name a music critic right now, if they are under the age of 25, they will say Anthony
0:55.9	Fantano, when Spin profiled him, every writer they spoke to was at least aware of Anthony
1:03.0	Fantano's work.
1:04.3	He is the most popular music critic on YouTube.
1:09.0	He is also the internet's busiest music now that he is known for being
1:13.3	absolutely prolific. Mr. Anthony Fattano, welcome to Kurt Farris. Thanks for having me on. Notice
1:18.8	they asked them if they were aware of me, not if they liked me. Well, there's actually,
1:23.1	they say that they say some people would not speak on the record of their opinions of him.
1:29.8	I noticed.
1:31.2	But awareness, that's half the battle.
1:33.9	Awareness is key.
1:34.7	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:35.8	Listen, I want to start by asking you about criticism itself, about having opinions on music and what right one has to criticize and the standards
1:45.9	one used to evaluate. You were on Adam Friedland's show recently and he was very incensed
1:51.2	that you had the audacity to think that you could criticize his, one of his favorite albums,
1:57.2	Abbey Road. He basically said, how dare you even imply that the great Paul
	...

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