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Today I’m Doing A Thread Of Ciara’s 3rd Album “Fantasy Ride” The Good, The Bad, The Behind The Scenes, And The Iconic-ness Of It All
In early 2008, Ciara began working on her 3rd studio album titled “Fantasy Ride” with already platinum records under her belt. She’s quoted on wanting to take fans on a “musical journey” with her new music.
The album was intended to be a 3-disc project giving 3 different sides of Ciara musically.
Groove City with more sensual songs. Crunktown giving classic Ciara vibes. And Kingdom of Dance serving all out dance cuts.
Groove City with more sensual songs. Crunktown giving classic Ciara vibes. And Kingdom of Dance serving all out dance cuts.
Fantasy Ride was to introduce Ciara’s comic book superhero alter ego “Super C” going along with the theme and music of the album. Stating Super C is her “inner strength and aggressive persona”
Things went left very shortly as material from the album began leaking during the summer of 08, including rumored lead single “High Price” featuring Ludacris.
The song received mixed reviews being a sound very new and different from for the singer. She was upset the song leaked unfinished and not being presented how she intended.
High Price inevitably scrapped as a lead single..and years later, an unfinished video would leak of what appeared to be for “High Price”
Moving to Sept. 08, the lead single for Fantasy Ride would be a single called “Go Girl”, despite Ciara’s wishes.
The song unfortunately didn’t live up to the anticipation of her upcoming project, but it gave Ciara the opportunity to introduce her comic persona “Super C”, further promoting the project due for a 4th quarter release in 2008.
In October of 2008, Ciara covered Billboard Magazine being awarded with the “Woman Of The Year” award, becoming the first black woman to receive the award. Artist such as Beyonce, Taylor Swift etc. would go on to receive the award in following years.
She went to speak on Go Girl and Fantasy Ride at the event.
With Go Girl not receiving the response anticipated, it was dubbed a promo single and more tracks from the album began to leak. Songs such as “Supernatural”, “I’m On”, “Explode” (later named Ciara To The Stage), “Work” and more.
Due to Go Girl underperforming and so many song leaks, Fantasy Ride was pushed back to 2009 to give more time for promotioning and finishing the project.
Late 2008, Ciara went on to perform some of new material to give fans a sample of what’s to come. Here she’s performing “Explode” later named “Ciara To The Stage”
Performing “I’m On”. Her style and sound was switch majorly from her debut look and sound of “Crunk and street vibes” as she began to show a more sensual and mature side to her.
In the meantime, to give fans something to hold them over, Ciara announced they “Fantasy Ride mixtape” giving 2 tracks. One being a remix to Beyoncé’s “Diva” and the other being a song titled “Slow Down” ft. 50 Cent...she announces Never Ever at the end as the lead single.
Beginning of Jan. 2009, Never Ever was officially announce as the projects lead single.
The song became a moderate smash hit, becoming Ciara’s 11th top 10 hit on the US R&B/Hip-Hop Chart, and later being certified Gold.
In Jan. 2009, Ciara was also feature on Enrique Iglesias single Takin Back Back My Love, at Latin pop duet. (Sidenote: Ciara ATE this hair UP!)
A very sensual video between the two was released, becoming one of their most viewed videos to date, having almost 200 million views on YouTube.
With Never Ever on airwaves, Fantasy Ride was back in motion, but MORE material from the album was STILL leaking from being mishandled by her record label JIVE.
In Feb. 2009 a new track feat. Chris Brown initially titled “Turn Me On” snippet leaked online...It was later titled Turntables
Now, Turntables was RUMORED to be the follow single to Never Ever..an EPIC dance duet between Ciara and Chris, but this new song came one month after the physical altercation between Chris and Rihanna.
During this time, little to no radio stations or any media outlets were playing anything Chris Brown related because of the situation. And Ciara was caught in the contraversy of whether to keep Turntables on the album or take Chris off the track.
Ciara addressee the situation on 106 & Park and MTV News, staying she would keep Chris on the song, but it may sound a little different (mastered). Ciara was also very clear that she was NOT defending or supporting Chris’ actions, but was keeping it about the music.
In March, Ciara linked up with Justin Timberlake to create the second single “Love Sex Magic” for Fantasy Ride.
“Love Sex Magic” went on to become a worldwide HIT! Going top 10 in multiple countries, including the Hot 100, being certified platinum, and Grammy and VMA nominated.
“Love Sex Magic” became her biggest international hit, and was the driving force behind Fantasy Ride.
