The flip side of the latter single, "You Light Up My Life" (not the Debby Boone hit), charted separately from its A-side. 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. 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. As the years passed, it remained one of her most consistent sellers as more people discovered its uniqueness. And, I mean, there's unquestionably no Laura Nyro without Carole King--but there's also no Carole King without Laura Nyro, you know?

Taking a cue from Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, Fantasy presents itself as an uninterrupted song cycle with each different song flowing into one another with no break. There were problems in the ghettos ("Haywood" and "Welfare Symphony"), and the world's environment and very existence were in jeopardy ("Being At War With Each Other"). The main thesis here appears to be "bad things exist, but the best way to create a better world is to just believe in the existence of a better world, in a very abstract way".

All in all, it would be pretty hard to argue that this is anything other than more decent pop product from King Carole. People confronted those in power ("You've Been Around Too Long") and asked that changes be made, and soon ("Directions"). It's got the pleasant melancholy and strong melodies that characterize most Carole King albums, but there's an extra dose of grooviness here that, as another reviewer has mentioned, sounds inspired by Marvin Gaye's landmark What's Going On. Writing the entire album herself, without an outside lyricist, she moves away from the introspective songs of Tapestry and its immediate follow-ups to examine the lives of others, in particular of those less fortunate. The songs transition seamlessly into one another, which created a cohesive whole despite the wide range of styles and sounds.

The whole adds up to a formalized song cycle in which the Carole King Institution issues its summary social and philosophical expression to date — one that eschews melody for orchestration and lyrical spontaneity for generalities — the overall impact being the equivalent of an early Sixties soap opera. 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.Presented as a sort of song cycle, the album opens and closes with two versions of the title song and the songs on each side segue directly into one another. 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”). Orchestration that resembles, but that is vastly inferior to, Burt Bacharach’s productions for Dionne Warwicke is substituted for melody. The B-side is captivating in the extreme, with three fine hit singles (“You Light Up My Life,” the Latin funk workout “Corazón” and “Believe in Humanity”) at its core.

This album is laregely remembered for it's it "Corazon'",a tune that actually fairly uncommerical in it's Brazillian jazz-funk groove kind of way. Elias regarded "Believe" as being the best song on the album, saying that "all of the elements coalesce and might make listeners wish they took the harder sound and well-meaning messages even further, even for the hell of it.This pressing sounds fine, King's piano has fullness and warmth, vocals and instruments are clear and well separated, resulting in an open, spacious soundstage. 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. 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. Fantasy, though very listenable as background music, affects the resurrection as “art” of the essentially innocent approach to songwriting that made her what she is today, and it doesn’t work.