A Dream Come True?

Dial 1-800-GET-A-HIT.

That’s how easy scoring a No. 1 single looks to have been for Southern California’s hot new teen girl group Dream, whose first release, “He Loves U Not,” just spent four weeks as the nation’s best-selling single.

Indeed, member Ashley Poole was just another 13-year-old living in rural Blythe, Calif., two years ago when she landed a spot in the group after dialing an 800 phone number she saw on TV soliciting viewers to take a shot at stardom.

The number was that of a Hollywood talent agency recruiting potential clients, but while she and her mother were checking out the agency, Ashley stumbled into auditions for a new teen pop group being held in the same building. She tried out and was selected along with North Hollywood resident Holly Blake and San Clemente-reared Melissa Schuman. Pacoima teen Diana Ortiz rounded out the final lineup a year later.

Those auditions were the brainchild of Kenny Burns, a music-industry veteran with his own dream--hence the group’s name--to create a female equivalent to the various boy bands that were dominating the charts in the late ‘90s.

“Being in the music business, I knew the boy-band thing was killer,” Burns says. “It seemed like it was time for a Bangles/Go-Go’s-type thing to be coming back around. The Spice Girls started to do it but didn’t really go all the way. Destiny’s Child had been out, but they weren’t as successful as they are now, and I thought, ‘Let’s get Dream in that category.’ ”

In a fraction of the time most bands spend preparing for a career, Dream got a showcase in Beverly Hills for influential rapper-producer Sean “Puffy” Combs, who decided on the spot to sign the girls to his Bad Boy Entertainment label.

Now they have a bona-fide hit single as the foundation for Tuesday’s release of their debut album, “It Was All Just a Dream.”

The quick success of “He Loves U Not” isn’t the only sign that Burns may have been right about the climate for girl groups. Female trio Destiny’s Child was one of pop music’s success stories of 2000. And on Jan. 12, the WB premiered “Popstars,” about the formation of an all-female pop group, the flip side of ABC-TV’s “Making the Band” series last year that produced the group O-Town.

“I think that we’re as far as we’re going to get with boy bands in a way,” says Geoff Mayfield, director of charts for Billboard magazine. “Some other boy group may still be somewhat successful, but it looks like everyone else will be competing for third place [behind ‘N Sync and Backstreet Boys], and there’s going to be a big difference between third and second place. . . . So I think there’s room [for a girl group].”

“I love the girl-power equivalent to the boy bands,” says Recording Industry Assn. of America President Hilary Rosen. “Young girls are going to identify with this record like they did with the Spice Girls.”

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KIIS-FM (102.7) program director Michael Steele, whose station gave Dream its first airplay by airing its demo version of “He Loves U Not” as early as last May, says, “A lot of those other groups have had a teen vibe, but these girls have got more than that. They’ve got a kind of a cool, hipness factor. I don’t know if that comes from Bad Boy, but they’re a little more gritty, and I think audiences are ready for something like this that’s a little different.”

Dream certainly represents something for Bad Boy and Combs, known for his own edgy hip-hop records and for his work with the likes of the Notorious B.I.G., Lil’ Kim, Shyne and Faith Evans.

Bad Boy, however, wasn’t Burns’ first stop when he went looking for a contract for Dream, even though he knew Combs.

“I took the girls everywhere, but nobody was interested,” says Burns, who previously worked with teen pop star Monica and was vice president of A&R; for Motown Records in 1996-97. “Everybody was scared--they’d say, ‘A girl group? I don’t know if that’s going to work.’ ”

Combs, however, was looking to broaden Bad Boy’s roster, and he not only signed the group but also produced five tracks for the album. There are, however, some clouds in this otherwise sunny scenario. Combs is on trial in New York on gun and bribery charges, and a conviction could create havoc for Bad Boy and its acts. Also, Combs and the singing group were sued this week in Los Angeles Superior Court by a talent agent who claims she is responsible for the stuff that Dream is made of.

Agent Judith Fontaine of Fontaine & Daughters Productions filed an unfair-competition suit that says her company deserves credit and cash for founding Dream. Kenny Meiselas, an attorney for Combs, released a statement Thursday labeling the litigation “a nuisance lawsuit that is groundless and without merit.”

Although the group’s origin is now a matter of contention, Dream’s pop ascension was carefully crafted. Bad Boy and its distributor, Arista Records, began paving the road for Dream last summer, when promotional postcards touting the group’s arrival were distributed at Nickelodeon’s “All That Music and More” teen pop festival shows nationally.

During the fall and winter, Dream played tour dates with ‘N Sync and Christina Aguilera, and their single got a big boost from their Dec. 15 appearance on MTV’s “Total Request Live.” Last week, they were presenters at the American Music Awards (taking the opportunity to plug the album’s release date).

Now promotional activities are kicking into high gear. In the days ahead they’ll be on “Live! With Regis” (Tuesday) and “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” (Wednesday), and they’ll sing during halftime at the Pro Bowl in Honolulu (Feb. 4).

One obstacle the group faced after recording a few songs was the feeling that they still didn’t have a knockout introductory punch. Enter songwriters Steve Kipner and David Frank, who have produced hits for Aguilera, 98 Degrees and other teen pop acts and who sent Dream a tape of “He Loves U Not.”

“[The record label] did great job . . . building a strong story around the single in the fall, then holding the album until January,” says Bob Bell, senior pop buyer for the Wherehouse Entertainment retail chain. “That should guarantee them a really strong debut.”

While all this seems to have happened in the blink of an eye by most standards, it feels like half an eternity to four girls who can’t cite the Go-Go’s or Bangles as female pop role models because, says North Hollywood 15-year-old Holly Blake, “they were a little before our time.”

“It’s been very intense--being away from our families, living together, dancing all the time and really trying to improve our group,” says Schuman, who, at 16, is the senior member of the quartet. Poole and Ortiz, like Blake, are still 15. “It really wasn’t an easy road to get where we are now, and that’s not even where we hope to be.”

Adds Blake, “When we got together, it wasn’t like, ‘Hey, nice to meet you’ and then instant success. We’ve put in a lot of time and hard work, and a lot of crying when nothing seemed to be happening.”

With the time they’ve logged as a unit, Dream’s members see no merit in drawing distinctions between a group that was assembled and one that developed more organically.

“I don’t think it matters if you were friends before,” says Poole. “The point is we all had the same passion to do something, the same as four other friends might have--it just happens we were brought together by our manager. God has a plan for everybody that’s different, but now that we are together, we’re closer than ever.”