The trajectory of Ciara‘s career was never based upon what was popular. Sure, her 2004 debut Goodies was chock full of cheeky-Pop bouncy tracks like everyone else; back when Crunk’n’B was mistakenly considered a mainstay in music. However, one thing that separated Ciara from the rest was her ability to be an all around entertainer. As the R&B starlet continues her progression toward maturity with her third album Fantasy Ride, she also plunges into the abstract and manages to stay afloat.
Fantasy Ride is the ideal third album for Ciara. If Goodies was the youthful attention grabber, and Ciara: The Evolution was the declaration of maturity, then Fantasy Ride is the experimental album. Ciara has her fan base; she’s traveled a well-paved road from being the Princess of a now defunct sub-genre to becoming an international powerhouse. Now is the perfect time for Ci Ci to test her superpowers- as evidenced by the album’s heroine-tinged imagery. This is Ciara‘s One In A Million– not comparable to One In A Million per se, but equally accomplished in taking intelligent risks.
The opener “Ciara To The Stage” is a sweet albeit safe entry into the Fantasy Ride and carries into the Justin Timberlake-assisted single “Love Sex Magic”, a zippy track where Ciara is channeling her old school Janet Jackson. “High Price” follows, reuniting with Ludacris [click to read], and for a moment it sounds like a rip-off of their first collab “Oh”, but it erupts into a Hip-operatic jam. The Chris Brown cameo on “Turntables” would’ve politically served better a year ago, but he drowns in the heavy production nonetheless. Fantasy Ride houses several tight beats that Ciara rides like a pro, outshining her remaining collaborators Young Jeezy [click to read] (“Never Ever”), The-Dream (“Lover’s Thing”) and even her mentor Missy Elliot on the goofy Missy-sounding “Work”.
The latter part of the album is actually the better half, where Ciara is alone, showcasing her ability to move through a variety of tempos. The up-tempos “Pucker” and “G Is For Girl (A-Z)” are clever club-ready anthems despite their terribly campy titles. “Keep Dancin’ On Me” and “Tell Me What Your Name Is” are back-to-back mid-tempos that slightly alter the flow of the album, but are decent standalone tracks. The regular edition of the album concludes with “I Don’t Remember”, a half-ballad that lags and reluctantly shifts gears mid-song. The Limited Edition of Fantasy Ride includes two bonus tracks- “I’m On” which is typical Ciara at work and “Echo”, one of the best songs on the album (and one of the first to leak). While Fantasy Ride isn’t Ciara‘s defining moment (she’s had several already) it is the reaffirmation that the young star is still in a class by herself.
