Songoftheday 6/28/22 - Pulling petals off a flower trying to get your way, keep pulling til' it says what you wanna say...

 

 

"He Loves U Not" - Dream

from the album It Was All A Dream (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 21

 

Today's song of the day comes from the female teen vocal group Dream, who originally came together in Los Angeles in the late 1998's under manager Judith Fontaine. However, after being signed to Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs' Bad Boy label, Holly Blake-Arnstein, Melissa Schuman, and Ashley Poole along with new member Diana Ortiz dumped Fontaine to continue with Combs' direction (shady!). All between 13 and 15 years old, the foursome released their debut single "He Loves U Not", the lead single from their debut album It Was All A Dream, in the summer of 2000. Written by songwriting veterans Steven Kipner (who penned Olivia Newton-John's "Physical"), David Frank (one half of the "Don't Disturb This Groove" duo the System), and Pamela Sheyne (who co-wrote Christina Aguilera's "Genie In A Bottle"), with Kipner and Frank producing, the song has the girls addressing someone trying to steal their man, saying he's not tied but he'll never leave me for the likes of you. This is all over a Darkchild-style cadence Destiny's Child was winning on, so this age-appropriate copy fit the Disney Radio market (and an odd departure for Combs' Bad Boy repetoire). 

 

 "He Loves U Not" became Dream's first and biggest hit, making the runner-up spot on Billboard magazine's pop Hot 100 in December of 2000. The song climbed to #15 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart, while getting to #9 on the dance-oriented Rhythmic radio format list. Internationally, the single peaked at #6 in New Zealand, and reached the top-40 in Canada (#12), the UK (#17), Norway (#20), Sweden (#26), Australia (#30), The Netherlands (#40), and Ireland (#40). The It Was All A Dream album, released in January of 2001, went to #6 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #11 on the R&B Albums list, going on to sell over a million copies. Both Dream and the album will return to the series.

(6/10)

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Here's the group performing the song live to track on Top of the Pops...

 

 Next up, the group opening for 98 Degrees in their retro tour in 2016...

And lastly, an quite nice acoustic take for a YouTube channel that same year...

Up tomorrow: The H.O.V.A. of rap requests some romance.