Fantasy

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All the songs are less sing along then previous Carole songs but that still doen't make this album bad it makes it better in fact because it shows how serious Carole is as an artist. The high point of the A-side is the wondrous “That’s How Things Go Down,” perhaps Carole’s finest ballad since “So Far Away. While the tracks can stand on their own, when taken in succession, they have an added depth and formed a memorable whole. Some may argue that the lyrics, and the solutions offered, are too simplistic, but I feel comfortable being presented with situations unaccompanied by too many details. Unusually, this takes the form of a literal fantasia; a steady, safe, stream-of-consciousness flow of moreish MOR.

She ends with the best track of all, "Believe In Humanity", in which she and her piano remain in the groove while she states that she'd rather not hear the worst, or she might lose her faith in mankind, and she doesn't want that to happen.Only one song, “You Light Up My Life,” shows the luminescent, intimate King sensibility that made Tapestry, Music and Rhymes And Reasons so emotionally satisfying. 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. She continued to use a variety of supporting musicians, including guitarists Danny Kortchmar and Dave Walker, who form the foundation for her piano work, which was some of the best of her career.

In the opening and title cut of Carole King‘s first, and I hope last, “conceptual” album, the format is made crystal clear: “I may step outside myself/And speak as if I were someone else/ … In fantasy I can be black or white/A woman or a man. We still have the same problems to cope with today, and more, but I still get the same uplifting feeling when I hear this album as I did in 1973.And, I mean, there's unquestionably no Laura Nyro without Carole King--but there's also no Carole King without Laura Nyro, you know?

In “That’s How Things Go Down,” she is a pregnant and potentially unwed mother and in “Weekdays” the mythical everyday housewife: “Heaven knows I can always watch the daytime shows/And wonder which story’s mine. Apparently, Carole King has forgotten that they are, and no amount of well-meaning altruism can make up the difference. All in all, it would be pretty hard to argue that this is anything other than more decent pop product from King Carole. Allmusic critic Jason Elias said that "'Corazón' has Latin intonations and King certainly doesn't embarrass herself.Record World said of the single "Believe in Humanity"/"You Light Up My Life" that "'Believe' is a fine rocking tune with great orchestrations, while 'Light Up My Life' is a gently wistful ballad. Fantasy gets my vote as Carole King’s most underrated album, and deserves a lot more accolades than it generally receives. Married women were questioning their lives ("Weekdays"), and unwed mothers were wondering if they could make it ("That's How Things Go Down").

And I'm not even talking about taking (or not taking) action, I feel like this album is emotionally disengaged with the social problems it addresses--the things that made Marvin Gaye want to holler, but Carole here is afraid to even do that. Despite the fact that the songs are almost always constantly drifting, the sheer loveliness of her trademark singing style and the ornate, quasi-classical nature of the album guarantees this as a very decent listen. 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”). You’ve Been Around Too Long” expresses an early civil rights mentality: “… you’ve been around too long/Not to realize what’s going on inside/I’m just like you/I’m doing the best that I can do to make my stride.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. Vote up content that is on-topic, within the rules/guidelines, and will likely stay relevant long-term. When I listened to "Fantasy" again after all these years, it was like picking up a 1973 newspaper and reading story after story. 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".