Honestly, all I really want to say with this review is: I love Ciara. I think she’s the coolest, awesomest, tough as nails chick on the planet. And it’s not even a sexual thing, ok maybe a little, but it’s more like I want her to be my best friend, show me impressive dance moves and take me out partying.

To prove my fandom, I’ll say that I was legitimately excited when I first heard that Fantasy Ride was going to be a triple-album. The list of singers that I’d love to see release a triple album is pretty short. In fact, it contains one other name and that’s R. Kelly. But yeah! It was gonna be cool. Each disc was going to focus on different genres: Crunk Town, Groove City and Kingdom of Dance. I was giddy.

Well it didn’t turn out that way. In the end we ended up with a conventional fifteen track album. And if you’ve even stayed remotely connected to the internets, you’ve already heard the songs since they’ve been leaking like crazy. That’s the bad news.

The good news is: Ciara is amazing! I adore her! So maybe I’m not the right person to evaluate this album. Hell, I’d love a Ciara album even if it consisted exclusively of Limp Bizkit covers. But I’ll share this small critique: the undoubtable lowlight of the album is when Missy Elliott barges in and takes over in ‘Work’, shouting stuff like “everybody get up in the club”. Hey Missy! Everybody’s tired of your schtick, and nobody thinks you’re cool anymore. Why don’t you come out of the closet and get a talkshow or something instead of ruining other people’s songs with your circa 2002 steez! K thanx.

And oh! The highlight of course is ‘Turntables’, the dancefloor duet with wife beater, liar and coward Chris Brown. But apart from that one, it’s in the slow groovy songs - that I imagine would have made up the Groove City disc - that my favorite songstress shines the brightest. Luv you Ciara!