Fantasy

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The music overshadows the lyrics in many places, which are simpler and more straightforward than in the past. In between these “someone else” monologues, Carole King speaks in her Institutional role as humanitarian empathist: “Everyone comes from one father one mother/So why do we complicate our lives so much/By being at war with each other” (“Being at War with Each Other”). When I listened to "Fantasy" again after all these years, it was like picking up a 1973 newspaper and reading story after story.

By this point Carole had a string of hit albums and songs and sell out concerts and to bag it all up a few Grammys. Funk and soul were beginning to come into their own as artists from Detroit,Chicago and Memphis began expressing themselves more freely in the creative sense,and taking more control over their music.

I would describe this album as the intersection between Tapestry, Make Way for Dionne Warwick, What's Going On, and Watertown.

Vote up content that is on-topic, within the rules/guidelines, and will likely stay relevant long-term. This is the kind of thing that makes you realize how random the selection of hits are from respective albums. Up through Rhymes And Reasons, Carole King wrote songs that, in their specificity of detail, personal revelation, and narrative force, embodied an extraordinary populist feeling and musical vitality.In five cuts, Carole King “fantasizes” an ethnic persona, for which she has single-handedly provided the most tepid, tokenistic “soul” backgrounds imaginable. Unusually, this takes the form of a literal fantasia; a steady, safe, stream-of-consciousness flow of moreish MOR.

The technique does not truly hit home until tracks 5 and 6, when such a level of pure melodic bliss is reached that I cannot help but to be utterly bowled over. The Spanish language track "Corazón" (the Spanish word for "heart", also used as a term of endearment, as in this song's lyrics) was a moderate hit single from the album, as was "Believe in Humanity". It really is a very enjoyable listen from beginning to end if you are into that lovely, soft and slightly comforting seventies sound. Of course that doesn't mean the ballads aren't soulful;Carole's always were but "Directions","A Quiet Place" and even the softer "Being At War With Each Other" definately have it in abundance.Directions” could just as easily be a bow to feminism as to black consciousness, its message being a catchall for malcontents: “Oooh, what does it get you/Stealing somebody else’s pride/How much longer must I cry. In “Fantasy End,” the album’s coda, Carole King announces: “Now that I’ve expressed my soul/I’ll step back into my real-life role. It's hard to judge where this falls in the Carole King discography in terms of critical and fan reaction since both things seem to begin and end purely at Tapestry, but from my cursory experience, I'll just say that this at least feels like, the lone other time where Carole King consciously tried to make a major album statement to be held up against her one big album. All in all, it would be pretty hard to argue that this is anything other than more decent pop product from King Carole. The album is more RnB as Carole has ever been and is very experimental from Caroles previous albums.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.There's not a bad track here, and the strongest, particularly the funkier ones like You've Been Around Too Long and Haywood, are just majestic. The more ambitious arrangements did have negative repercussions (see Wrap Around Joy), but for this album the string and brass arrangements work; most effectively on “Welfare Symphony,” which is almost the Carole King version of prog rock in the way it develops from a spare vocal/organ track to a full-blown orchestral piece.