Naked under her cartoons

Forget the almost year-long delay, the several attempts at a lead single, the official abomination of a lead single ("Love Sex Magic" is what happens when Hard Candy gets old and gets damp with that nasty sugar-sweat), the embarrassing cover, the hopelessness of releasing an album in '09, anyway -- even without all that, Ciara's Fantasy Ride practically announces itself as a failure. The first words that tip out of Ciara's typically expressionless mouth are, "Tonight I'm gon' do something different," as Don Vito and Tricky recreate the tension-release sex-jam atmosphere of one of the finest R&B singles of this decade, Ciara's own "Promise." Something different? Like, really? Is she kidding? Is she stupid or just stupid enough to think that we're that stupid?

Blame it on the reduced expectations (I completely expected to hate this album, as related in a recent ANTM recap), but what transpires in the wake of all this adversity ends up feeling like a triumph. In my estimation, Fantasy Ride is, song for song, the best R&B album of the year so far. By being herself but bigger (as though she's following reality TV talent direction) and making what pop music sounds like in '09 but dancier, Ciara has turned out an album that is more consistently infectious than anything her contemporaries have released this year, and anything she's released in her career. I know I'm feeling an album when, during the first week of listening to it, my favorite song changes with each compulsive iPod spin. I know I'm in love when this fails to abate during the second week. I'm going on the third and there's still no sign of letting up.

I suspect this is something of a personal phenomenon. Fantasy Ride just sounds like what I think a contemporary R&B album is supposed to sound like. For one thing, it's electronic as (self-) fuck, with an almost sadistic interest in pummeling beats. The slow jams snap and grind with a crotch-endangering force and the dance tracks thump to get a rise out of the floor. I realized just how much this appraoch appealed to me as I listened to Christte Michele's overly polite Epiphany, which despite some killer tracks, drifted away from my attention to the left, to the left, in a sea of acoustic guitars. I faced similar disappointment in The-Dream's Love vs. Money, which also contains greatness (including my favorite R&B track of the year, the devastating "Right Side of My Brain"), but is too invested in etching out Terius Nash's ultimately threadbare persona to be anything but a big bore after a while (making the observation that women get done-up to mess it all up in the bedroom, as he does in "Sweat It Off," is clever; repeating that joke throughout the song is indulgent). Keri Hilson's In a Perfect World... is a collection of pop songs so strong that they could be performed by anyone with a passable voice and lose nothing. World feels more like a songbook than an album as Hilson emerges the ultimate anti-diva whose goal as a vocalist seems to be as competent as possible so as not to get in the way of her songs (as opposed to divas, which by my definition, are bigger than their songs).

Funnily enough, I used to think of Ciara as being guilty of Keri's minor offense, especially when she emerged during the little-voiced first half of this decade. But on Fantasy Ride, she's actually interpreting. She camps it up on "High Price" (if she didn't, the Luda-featurer would be just a retread of "Oh," and we'd be all, "Oh."). She pouts with her voice like some exaggerating child on the extremely worded "Never Ever." And she oozes with this doe-eyed innocence that amounts to irresistibility during her duet with The-Dream, "Lovers Thing." Her sexuality is simultaneously at ease and pronounced, as though her voice is wearing her boyfriend's T-shirt.

She's always had that Aaliyah-esque effortless hotness, so that when she attempts to smolder, she sounds like she's in her mommy's whore paint. Paradoxically that approach works for "Like a Surgeon" (which, as every review points out, is not a Weird Al remake, and that makes it even more amazing -- who knew the pop canon had room for two distinct songs titled "Like a Surgeon?"). Despite being the track that I will strip to when I'm forced to do so (I wait for that day with 'bated breath!), "Surgeon" is more a laugh than a turn-on. I appreciate it like I appreciate a pair of fun-bags. It helps that Tricky and The-Dream have cooked up another one of their earwigs of a pop song for her, both in melody and sound, with chords so intense and guttural that it's over-the-top like Spinal Tap (or, more fairly, the older sister of "Red Light Special," who really likes it rough).

That's a slow jam, but it's propulsive as is much of the album. The house highlight is the Indian-infused "Turntables," which is what would happen if Basement Jaxx went extremely straight (and Chris Brown's pleading vocals are bizarre enough to make me forget that I'm listening to a disgusting person). But really, no pop album since Britney's Blackout has been this devoted to obliterating the line between pop and dance music, and Blackout didn't contain a shout-out to the ball-attending queens (I mean, Ciara says the word "extravaganza" during "Work"!). Ever since house re-redefined what "club track" means in R&B a few years ago, I've been saying that mainstream dance music sounds way more refreshing than that which lies directly below the surface (i.e. the stuff that populates Billboard's Dance Club Play chart). But it wasn't until Fantasy Ride that I realized why: the few polyrhythms that accompany the 4/4 beat are slight, which makes for a sound that's stripped down enough to salute the genre's skeletal early days much more lucidly than the layers of crunching percussion that have come to define house music.

The finest productions are saved for the end (at least, the end of the original version of the album). I wasn't aware that Dr. Luke could do anything but stompy Gary Glitter retreads, but he proved me completely wrong with "What Your Name Is," which I can't even box into a genre. It is to Miami bass what dubstep is to speed garage -- a very lean incarnation that sounds like it's missing beats, much to its benefit. It recalls INOJ's "Time After Time" without resorting to cheap nostalgia or novelty. Even better is "I Don't Remember," the kind of subdued counterpoint that seems calculated to be deemed "something deeper under the high-gloss sheen" in blurby reviews. It is, indeed, but it's also a bit of production brilliance from Polow da Don, as it bops along like a Motown track under a thick needle-to-vinyl sound and with levels turned down enough to sound desaturated. This knob-twiddling reads like commentary on this latest Motown revival (as ushered in via Winehouse's popularity): that it's been done so much, it's at Xerox-of-a-Xerox-level quality. I don't know if that's Polow's intention, but I do know that for a producer as hit-or-miss as he is, this is a home run.

And it's not all perfect, mind you: I could have done without the Bratz-go-to-Seasame Street silliness of "G Is for Girl (A-Z)" and I'm not quite sure why anyone would hire Darkchild to do a shitty Danja rip-off ("Pucker Up") when you could have just gotten Danja to do another track (he appears twice before "Pucker"!). But whatever, no one's perfect and few are this consistently great in '09. Maybe I'm biased, because this just appeals to me on such a basic level of endearment, like a stranger with similar taste. And it turns out that Ciara has precisely that, to an almost mind-boggling degree. When her T-Pain collabo "Go Girl" was attempted as a single last fall, I listened to about half of it and turned it off, figuring I'd be inundated with its mediocrity soon enough (Teddy Pain's presence yields a guaranteed hit...except for this time). I finally heard the track in full as one of Fantasy Ride's bonus tracks, and noticed that one of her concluding ad libs sounded suspiciously like part of Soulja Girl's rant, something I was totally obsessed with last year. And then to confirm my suspicion, Ciara dropped a bombshell: "You thought I couldn't freestyle on you, boo," a line that played in my head on a loop for much of '08. At that point, I knew this was the album for me, that at this juncture, Ciara was speaking directly to me. Everything just felt right, like a connection you hear about in songs.

Comments

[Sarah]

Rich, thanks for always interesting albums to talk about.

I don't know if I'd compare this to Britney's Blackout (since for me that album was enormously different for Britney and for what was going on in Music, and as sooooo dancey and amazing).

Fantasy Ride seems to continue with Ciara's pattern of pumping out good-feeling-giver slow jams. I definitely fell in love with "Never Ever" and am really liking "Lovers Thing." I just can't get into her more upbeat songs, or they just don't stick in my head

[Dennis N.]

I'd love to see you gif up her insane leg-wiggling action in the LoveSexMagic video. It's pretty epic.

[Dan]

I've been going back and forth between Chrisette Michele's album and this one since I got them on... Tuesday? They just came out three days ago? It seems like I've already listened to each one several times and that I would have needed at least a week.

I think I'm pleasantly surprised everytime I listen to Fantasy Ride. It's a constant state of guilty pleasure for me. Each song is greater than the some of its parts, and I enjoy them even though I find myself pointing out all of their faults.

I do disagree with some things though. This album is not as good as Epiphany, they just have different intentions. The dance feel of Fantasy Ride appeals more than the relaxed feel of Michele, but I think Epiphany is better at being a more smooth soul R&B album than Fantasy Ride is at being a more mainstream dancey album.

Oh (pun not intended, yet, acknowledged. So, kind of intended), High Price is awful. The whiny half of Ciara's vocals sound like Sasha Fierce's rejects (and I am no fan of that crazy ho) and the other half sounds like some weird Nelly Furtado soundalike attempt. The Luda verse is just a recycled bit from the cutting room floor of 03 the first time Oh came out, and the beat sounds like they just used the same song then added more on top of it to hide their mistake.

[Fred]

Rich, do you ever listen to Peaches? It is conceivable that you would like her new album, although I'm aware opinions are unruly. Just thinkin aloud.

[Jonathan]

I second the Peaches comment, I Feel Cream is amazing

[The Management]

I have to ask if you are going to do a review of Chrisette Michele's album ...

[steele]

I haven't listened to the whole album yet, but I'm sure you are spot-on. THANK YOU for introducing me to "Surgeon." It's exactly what I've been craving.

[Noel Brinkley]

Rich, When I read your original take on the Ciara album I was begging you to have another listen. I will implore you to also look at the Love,Sex, and Magic video. Justin does let her run the show the rare time he is left to the shadows because he knows Ciara's dancing would only make him look small by comparison. Have you heard the non-album version of "Right Side of ya Brain?" Sometimes I find when The Dream fine tunes and polishes his tracks, he sometimes removes some of my favorite parts. (Keep Dancing as a duet was much more effective.)

[Brian]

I read on twitter that you were listening to "Like a Surgeon" and I thought you were talking about Weird Al.

In case you didn't know (which you might, but this review gives no indication of that) the song is a parody of "Like a Virgin" by Madonna.

Which makes it even weirder.

[Chantal Goya]

"Like a Surgeon" and "Love Thing" are the stand out tracks. Not really liking "Turntables," though. I really hope this album does well but looking at the Itunes chart, it's not looking likely. How lame is it that only Beyonce has staying power among the female RnB singers. Hope she doesn't go the way of Mya, Ashanti, and Eve.

[phil]

yess i noticed that Soulja Girl reference on Go Girl, so happy it wasn't just me

[Jared]

Have you heard the itunes preorder-only bonus track, "When I" ?? It's incredible. The best track (at least the best dance track) on the album.

Aside from that, (a) I didn't like the album as much as you, and (b) it doesn't feel like an RnB album to me. If she wasn't black, no one would classify this as RnB, right? All the upbeat tracks feel like pure dance-pop, not as amazing as Blackout's but certainly of that level.
Maybe it's just because the slower tracks on this album haven't really hit home with me. I should give them another listen.

Loooooove High Price. When she opera-sings "booty looks softer than a mcdonald's hamburger bun" I fall in love with her.

[Miss Brandon]

My new years resolution was to stop caring about all female black R&B singers whom I've loved over the years since they all end up with their careers in the shitter because of Beyonce's world domination....and I end up taking it personally. So my theory was that by not paying any attention to them..my feelings wouldn't get hurt when they flopped...which all led me to wonder why I even care..but..umm..anyway..

I fell off the wagon and actually purchased Ciara's Deluxe edition cd from Targay (with my last $20 might I add) just to help the bitch out. I ended up LOVING the cd....Like you, I don't care for Pucker Up ( A big mess), or G is for Girl (kinda growing on me though..I like when she says 'H is for Hooooold Up!')..but I have already pussy popped in public to "Work" and have driven with the top down to "Echo"...I have mind-directed the video for "Surgeon"..(Ciara grinding through a grid of neon laser lights on the floor.)And I LOVE high price..even though I laughed my ass off at the vocals the first time I heard it...

Anyway..yeah..I'm in love with her all over again..especially after I just saw her do a great job with Love Sex Magic on SNL...and now that I see that she's not really selling that many CDs I'm mad all over again. I know it doesn't really matter..as long as I enjoy the music...but STILL..I wish she could get her shine on properly!!

[Evan]

What do you think of Echo and I'm On, Rich? Those two are two of my favorite tracks, of course they're bonus material. Maybe it's just me.

[Kristian]

i was tonsa mad at you for slammin' CiCi in yr ANTM post. YOU BETTA RECKONIZE! And you did, so... thanks. I hope you've listened to her promo mixtape where she covers Beyonce's Diva, because it's the bomb-ass poonani.

[2vj]

Fantasy Ride is by far my favorite album this year! I just wish that if they Release "Turntables" Chris Brown's vocals are replaced with Ne-Yo's because that would surely become a mega hit i love that sooooong!! I could see myself loving it even more if that tool of Chris Brown weren't on it.

[Iadssnxm]

uxFKio

[adipex effects harmful side]

I want to say - thank you for this!

[tramadol buzz]

If you have to do it, you might as well do it right.

[sheltoncal]

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