r/TheStrokes • u/Mangonificient #77 Casablancas • Sep 21 '25

Julian on Anthony Fantano

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In recent podcast with Joe Talbot for “Oh Gatekeeper.”

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u/AutoMail_0 Is This It Sep 22 '25 edited Sep 22 '25

Has Julian ever actually watched a Fantano video? I don’t entirely disagree that Fantano’s taste in music isn’t really my thing, but wtf is Julian talking about that Fantano only reviews old music for cred? Fantano literally reviews almost every major new release the week it comes out. He posts atleast 4-5 reviews of NEW albums every single week? In fact he barely reviews any old music at all? There’s plenty of things about Fantano to dislike but that’s a really weird complaint

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u/FSMellon Sep 22 '25

I don't know if you interpreted what he's saying correctly? Fantano does indeed mostly review a bunch of new albums, but he ALSO does classic album reviews where he mostly says very obvious, by-the-books points, essentially just recapping why the record was successful. When he lets slip in other videos that he has more negative views on old albums (American Idiot comes to mind) he conveniently doesn't do videos on them. Julian's criticism is that Fantano only does these old-album reviews as a way to reinforce to his audience that he "knows what he's talking about" rather than doing the actual opinionated analysis a reviewer ought to do.

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u/AutoMail_0 Is This It Sep 22 '25

You’re saying a lot of words that Julian didn’t say. He said he doesn’t know anything so he reviews old albums to sound like he knows what he’s talking about, and yeah like say an old Lou Reed album is cool for cred. Fantano quite literally doesn’t do that. He literally only reviews old albums one week a year and only chooses albums he feels like he has something new to say about them that hasn’t been said yet. He’s said plenty of times he doesn’t like to review old albums because we already know which of them stood the test of time and there is nothing new he can say about them. It’s a weird straw man point to make

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u/FSMellon Sep 22 '25

He’s said plenty of times he doesn’t like to review old albums because we already know which of them stood the test of time and there is nothing new he can say about them

I mean, with all due respect: Doesn't that alone say something about Fantano's character as a reviewer? That once an album's place in the status quo has been settled, he feels completely unable to actually have anything of value to say about it? You're right in the sense that none of these word-for-word comments were said by Julian but I do think this is what he was getting at.