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"Fantasy" was the first single from Mariah Carey's sixth album, Daydream, released in 1995.

The original version was co-written and co-produced by Carey and Dave Hall and is well known for being built around a sample of the Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love". This is one of Carey's most popular songs. Carey describes a fantasy, proclaiming "sweet sweet, fantasy, baby, when I close my eyes, you come in and take me on". The urban remix of "Fantasy" features Ol' Dirty Bastard and is widely regarded as having launched the trend of rap/sung collaboration.

The album version of "Fantasy" was nominated for the 1996 Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance but did not win. The dance remix won the Winter Music Conference National Dance Award for Dance Record of the Year.

Videos

The "Fantasy" video was a creative milestone for Carey, as it was the first that she directed entirely on her own. She can be seen exploring an amusement park (Playland, in suburban Rye, New York) in jean shorts and on roller blades. At one point, Carey is even seen singing the song in the midst of a roller coaster ride. The video is also famous for including an overweight young girl who tries to emulate Carey, and an ending sequence at the amusement park at night, where she can seen grooving along with a legion of dedicated hip hop dancers. Footage would also be used to create the video for the Bad Boy Remix of the song. Although most scenes are similar, scenes with ODB rapping were also added.

The video of both versions of the music video remained unreleased to consumers for years. The "Bad Boy Remix" version was finally released on the DVD/video version of #1's. The original video of the album version has never been released to consumers on video or DVD, though it is freely available on the Yahoo! Music site.

Remixes

"Fantasy" marked one of the most notable moves in Carey's career, and it had one of her biggest impacts on pop culture. The album version of "Fantasy" mixes pop and hip-hop styling, but the Bad Boy Remix of "Fantasy" took that concept even further by using guest raps from Ol' Dirty Bastard. After Music Box, Carey was seen as a conservative pop diva famous for pop Adult Contemporary ballads. The public didn't realize that Carey's tastes leaned towards R&B and Hip-Hop, and that for the most part she had been unable to accurately portray this in her music. This transformation would become more explicit with the release of her seventh album, Butterfly.

Carey therefore took steps to create the Bad Boy remix of Fantasy with producer Sean Combs (Puff Daddy). The remix is known for its barebones approach as some of the pop elements of the song are removed, while the bassline and sample ("Genius of Love") are emphasized more. The remix is perhaps most known for its rap from the late Ol' Dirty Bastard (ODB). The idea of a clean pop diva and the controversial rapper working on the same song caused some shock among the media and fans at the time, with ODB delivering his now classic raps like "Me and Mariah/go back like babies on pacifiahs."

Overall, the remix of "Fantasy" is seen as one of Carey's most signficant contributions to pop culture and the music industry. The move helped transform Carey, with regard both to her image and to her music, from a conservative pop diva who sang pop ballads to a more sexual and hip-hop oriented woman. The song is also often called the first true pop/hip-hop colloboration and is noted for inspiring that trend in modern pop music of the late 1990s and beyond.

Club remixes of this song by David Morales with resung vocals were also sold.

Official remixes/versions list

• Album version
• Live (edited performance from Fantasy: Mariah Carey at Madison Square Garden)
• Bad Boy with O.D.B./Puffy's mix (commonly referred to as the Bad Boy remix)
• Bad Boy Fantasy
• Bad Boy mix
• Puffy's club mix
• Def club mix
• Def drums mix
• Radio mix
• MC mix
• The Boss mix
• Sweet dub mix

Track listings of major single-releases

U.S. CD maxi single (cassette maxi single/U.K. CD single 1)

1. Album version
2. Bad Boy Fantasy
3. Bad Boy with O.D.B.
4. Bad Boy mix
5. Def club mix

U.S. 12" single

1. Def club mix
2. MC mix
3. Puffy's mix
4. Bad Boy with O.D.B.
5. Album version
6. The Boss mix
7. Sweet dub mix
8. Puffy's club mix
9. Bad Boy mix

U.K. CD single 2

1. MC mix
2. Puffy's mix
3. Puffy's club mix
4. The Boss mix
5. Sweet Dub mix

Chart performance

"Fantasy" proved to be one of Carey's biggest hits in her career at this point, and became her ninth number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100. It became a massive international hit, and like "Dreamlover" started a series of successful singles from its parent album (in this case Daydream).

"Fantasy" became the first song by a female artist and the second song ever to debut at number one in the U.S., and spent eight weeks at the top (her longest stay at the time alongside "Dreamlover"). It spent twenty-five weeks on the Hot 100, of which twenty-three were in the top forty.

Not surprisingly, the song was strong in both determining factors of The Hot 100, as it reached number one on both component charts, gaining large amounts of airplay and selling high enough to become her first single to achieve Double Platinum certification. This was the first Carey single to top both component charts since "Love Takes Time" in 1990 and became her longest stay on both the Hot 100 Airplay and Hot 100 Single Sales charts. It gained wide success as an R&B and dance single, topping both the respective airplay and single sales charts.

Outside the U.S. it was very successful, producing another top-five hit for Carey in the United Kingdom and topping the Canadian, Australian, and Japanese charts. In Canada it remained at the top for twelve weeks, the longest stay by a single on the Canadian Singles Chart until 1997. It also reached the top ten in most countries across Continental Europe.

"Fantasy" entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number one, and was ranked seventh on the Billboard Hot 100 year-end charts (1995) and forty-ninth on the Billboard Hot 100 Year End Charts (1996). It remained in the Billboard Hot 100 for twenty-five weeks.

"Fantasy" was Carey's ninth number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100, her third on the Billboard Hot 100 Single Sales, her ninth on the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay, her fourth on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks, her fifth on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles Sales, her fifth on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, her first on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales, her fifth on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play, her third on The Billboard Mainstream Top 40, and her second on the Billboard Rhythmic Top 40.

It was Carey's fifth number-one single on the Canadian Singles Chart, her first on the ARIA Singles Chart, and her second on the Tokyo Hot 100.

• 1995 singles
• Australian number one singles
• Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles
• Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play number-one singles
• Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks number-one singles
• Canadian number one singles
• Mariah Carey singles