Dream. It’s crazy looking back at this group because I was a tween when their first single was a smash hit and I always thought they were 18-year-olds. Turns out that the members of Dream were slightly older than me, but knowing what we do about Diddy now, I kind of feel a little icky knowing Diddy had girls aged 13-14 dancing around for him. Perhaps this is why their career ended in 2003 after just two studio albums. Besides issues with Bad Boy Records behind-the-scenes, a new group member and a provocative style too mature for teens, these pop goddesses have never publicly stated why the dream turned into a nightmare. Perhaps we’ll never know, but here is the chart history of Holly Blake-Arnstein, Melissa Schuman, Ashley Poole, Alex Chester, Diana Ortiz and Kasey Sheridan – otherwise known as Dream.
This girl group was formed in 1998 under the guise of First Warning, which sounds a little aggressive to me, so I’m glad someone canned this name. While gigging and doing showcases as First Warning, Alex Chester left and was replaced by Diana Ortiz. Eventually, they were signed by Bad Boy Records and came out absolutely swinging with their first single ‘He Loves You Not’ in 2000. Almost half a century later and I still remember all the lyrics to this song. ‘He Loves You Not’ was a wild success, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and eventually becoming Gold certified for sales of over 500,000. Honestly, it’s probably Platinum at this point, but that would require their shitty old label to update that with the RIAA. Although Spotify didn’t become big until 2009, ‘He Loves You Not’ currently has almost 15,000,000 streams on that platform.
Dream’s follow-up single, ‘This Is Me,’ wasn’t as popular but still became a hit in its own right. Thanks to a slew or remixes, ‘This Is Me’ took the #1 spot on TRL and reached the top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100. Again, I feel like this song should be certified Gold by now due to iTunes downloads and Spotify streams… but here we are. ‘He Loves You Not’ and ‘This Is Me’ were released in support of their debut album ‘It Was All a Dream.’ A weird Notorious B.I.G. reference, right? ‘It Was All a Dream’ peaked at #6 on the Billboard Top 200 in 2001 and was certified Platinum for sales of over 1,000,000. I don’t think the girls, especially as teenagers, get enough credit for what they achieved here. This wasn’t just a debut it was a total takeover. But, unfortunately, this is where things started to fall apart, and pop music history was changed forever.
Melissa Schuman left Dream to pursue an acting career. To her credit, she did book a number of roles – including a few horror films and Love Don’t Cost a Thing – but she never took off in this avenue. Dream, however, replaced Schuman with another teenager named Kasey Sheridan. That left Holly Blake-Arnstein and Ashley Poole as the only original group members. In early 2003, Dream went back into the studio to record their sophomore album. As I mentioned above, a number of things went wrong during this time, but the album was finished and promotion began as intended. The first single from album #2 was a song called ‘Crazy.’ ‘Crazy’ missed the mark entirely and only appeared at #39 on Billboard’s Pop Chart. A follow up single, ‘That’s OK’ featuring Fabulous, was released to radio and failed to chart at all. Sounds a little suspicious to me and here’s why.
It feels like Diddy gets tired of his girl groups easily and drops them like a hot potato. Total: two Platinum albums then dropped for no reason. Danity Kane: two Platinum albums then physically torn apart on live television. Dream: extremely popular and a lucrative first era then… nothing. I’m obviously not an industry insider, but it feels like when the artists yearn for integrity and creativity, he’d rather end their careers than relinquish control. Could it be that Dream pushed back too hard to express themselves accurately? Their sophomore album, ‘Reality,’ was sabotaged by only hitting iTunes in France in 2003 and shortly there-after Dream disbanded and went their separate ways. Five years later, ‘Reality’ was released on iTunes worldwide, but no one even knew because the wave was over.
Dream tried to reform to some extent in 2008. Melissa Schuman, Ashley Poole and Diana Ortiz created a new group named Lady Phoenix. The trio filmed a pilot for a reality TV show where they would look for new members and record new material, but it was not picked up by any network and Lady Phoenix returned to the ashes of obscurity. I’m going to stick with the fire references because… fun… and say that the flame was lit for a more palpable reunion at that time. Then, in 2015, it happened – the original members of Dream announced that they were back to take the music industry by storm. It started by releasing a cover of ‘O Holy Night’ before embarking on a series of one-off appearances and joining an early 2000s era world tour. Oh yes, I was here for this.
During the 2000s nostalgia tour, Dream would debut their first single in 13 years, a track called ‘I Believe.’ Available on all retailers/streaming platforms, ‘I Believe’ contained classic Dream vocals with a more mature sound and more quality lyrics. And to be honest, it sounds much better live! They also released another song, ‘Higher,’ which is listed as another cover song. I have no idea who it’s a cover of, but I don’t really care because yay more Dream! Once again, though, the dream became a nightmare when the girl group broke up for a second time in October 2016. But how? Why? Didn’t they announce plans for a new album? They love us, they love us not! To this day, I don’t think there’s been any concrete reason why they didn’t work out. I know that ‘O Holy Night,’ ‘I Believe’ and ‘Higher’ didn’t chart, but that doesn’t mean Dream couldn’t have gone forward as an independent group. Maybe it was due to missing their families? Whatever the case, fingers crossed for new Dream in the future.
(PS: Sending love and light to Melissa Schuman during this trying time.)
Pop Ghost 
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