Formed by Peter Cunnah and Al McKenzie in 1991, D:Ream was originally designed to be fronted by a female diva with Peter in a writing and production role and Al in a DJ role within a live band setup. An important live date arrived before the diva role had been filled and Peter, having written the tunes, found himself fronting, albeit somewhat reluctantly, he learned to love it.

By late 1991, D:Ream had built a solid club reputation through PA'sand parties and had been touted as the act that could bring back vocal and the song onto the dancefloor, at the time dominated by instrumentals and samples.

D:Ream's initial reputation lay in an ongoing series of 12" white label mixes of 'U R The Best Thing' which soon topped the dance charts.
The combination of strong songwriting and fat grooves kept this and 'Things Can Only Get Better', fresh on the dance floor throughout some 18 months, the latter's anthemic optimism reflecting the early 90's clubland positivity and energy. 12"promos by DJ friends like Sasha, Leftfield, Sine and David Morales secured a reputation for hot low level marketing with attitude but Peter was already interested in evolving the tunes toward shorter radio friendly 7" formats in the run-up to a debut album.

This backed by the long currency of the 12" mixes in the clubs made for four Top 40 placings in '93 with edits of 'U R The Best Thing',Things Can Only Get Better, Unforgiven and Star/I Like It. Suspicions of a pop destination were raised by Al MacKenzie's sudden departure at the end of that year, and sure enough, Peter went headlong for Top 5 with a refined version of 'Things Can Only Get Better', a number 1, and a masterful Perfecto edit of 'U R The Best Thing' which hit number 4.
A rapidly reissued 'D:Ream On Vol 1' LP, whose trippy e-inspired sleeve had been replaced with a full-on 'popstar' image of Peter, confirmed the end of D:Reams clubland phase. A second LP, 'World', in 1995, suffered from a distinct lack of DJ support and D:Ream's chart-placings for singles slipped also with only 'shoot me with your love' seeing the inside of the TOP 10.

Famously 'Things Can Only Get Better' was to enjoy a further life as a political anthem which led Labour's 1997 election victory.
Although Peter had embarked on recording a third album 'Leap of faith' he knew that the D:Ream game was up and acceeded to record company demands to issue a Best Of D:Ream collection of the first two albums singles while he developed solo and collaborative material in preparation for repositioning himself as a writer/producer working behind the scenes for other artists.
Written by Michael Kearney