INDUSTRY NEWS: CIARA RECORDING NEW ALBUM

According to Rap-Up Magazine Ciara has officially began recording her fourth album which will feature sole production from The-Dream and Tricky Stewart.

Tricky Stewart claims her album could see a release as early as 2010. He says the trio have already recorded 14 songs for the project, and the albun will have an uptempo/club-driven vibe overall. Instead of previous reports of a "Fantasy Ride," re-release Ciara and her team have just decided to leave that project in the past and embark on creating new material to be feature on a new album.

This does not come as a surprise to me because "Fantasy Ride" just doesn't stand the chance of being revitalized. The album leaked too way in advance, and although its reported that Ciara recorded well over 50 songs for the project, she still could not secure any real hit singles, or hit lead singles for that matter. How can the album's first ever single "Go Girl," be released in early to mid 2008, and "Fantasy Ride" sees a summer 2009 release. That's not common for a commercially established artist like Ciara who has a following.

I don't really know how to judge the situation. I just think Ciara made some bad decisions about the "Fantasy Ride," project like her overall concept and trying to become a pop artist; but at the same time Jive failed her in terms of handling the issue of her album leaking very prematurely, approving her creative direction, and promotional ploys. This entire ordeal definitely seems like it was a learning process for both parties, and this next LP will be handled with great care.

I think its smart that Ciara let The-Dream and Tricky Stewart produce her album entirely. The songs they produced for "Fantasy Ride" stood out the most, and their production efforts on Electrik Red's debut album"How To Be a Lady Vol. 1" and more recently Mariah Carey's twelth studio album "Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel" were impressive. I've always said that Electrik Red's material should have been sold to Ciara because she could have done it just as much justice, in addition to the idea that Ciara's third album should have been an updated ode to Janet Jackson's "Control" LP with just a little more Hip-Hop and Prince influence.