Fantasy

Fantasy were originally a group comprised of two females and two males, assembled and produced by Tony Valor. Their biggest single, “You’re Too Late,” charted disco for five weeks in 1981. It was taken from the Fantasy album on Pavillion Records, the first of two albums — the second being 1982′s Sex and Material Possessions. Vocally they were weak, more pop than soul, with too much reliance on a light-voiced female vocalist. Unlike New York and Philly disco, Fantasy were flyweight; the sound didn’t have the devastating beats that American clubbers like, but was more classy, hustle-styled disco. Hot Productions remembers them with repackaged compilations of their Pavillion recordings: The Best of Fantasy in 1990, and two more in the mid-’90s, He's Number One and You're Too Late. Valor revived the group in the early 2000s on his TVI label, beginning with another self-titled album, this one released in 2003. This revived Fantasy had very little in common with their predecessor: the membership now consisted of several young ladies — Dee, Janette, Mia, and Misty — and their sound was more in line with that of the times, that is, Euro-trance-style dance-pop not very far removed from traditional Hi-NRG. Fantasy version 2.0 charted a single in 2003, “Again,” and released another one a year later, “Hot Shot.” As he had done 20 years earlier, Valor wrote and produced most of the group’s songs. ~ Andrew Hamilton & Jason Birchmeier