Compilation: Hot Or Wot
Released: 1990 – RCA
Number of tracks: 17
Number one singles: None
Top ten singles: 5
Best track: "Infinity" by Guru Josh
Hidden gem: There aren't any songs here that I hadn't heard before.
An interesting one here – no number ones, but plenty of good stuff on offer. The biggest hits on Hot Or Wot are "How Can We Be Lovers" by Michael Bolton (the opening track), and "Mona" by Craig McLachlan & Check 1-2, which both reached number 3. There would probably be more than five top ten singles on here, if not for the curious fact that several songs – Taylor Dayne's "Love Will Lead You Back", The B-52s' "Roam", "Love Is" by Alannah Myles" and "I Remember You" by Skid Row – all peaked at number 11 or 12.
Anyway, who cares. Due to my habit of getting up way too early in the morning to watch the top 50 on Rage in its entirety, I am familiar with all 17 songs here. "Passion" by Bang The Drum I most remember for it being the song that came between Black Box and Technotronic on a VHS tape of mine where I taped the entire chart in May 1990. Speaking of whom, Technotronic's third single "This Beat Is Technotronic" is on here, sounding much louder than it does on the Technotronic album itself. Black Box's classic house piano track "I Don't Know Anybody Else" is here as well. Top stuff. Rave anthem "Infinity" is an essential addition too, as is Ben Liebrand's 1990 remix of "Black Betty" by Ram Jam – a most mysterious song to me in 1990 because it had no music video to promote it.
There are no lyrics included with this compilation – they hadn't started doing that yet. Instead you got a listing of the parent album each of the tracks were taken from. For Ram Jam it rather amusingly says "No album".
There's a few other denizens of the lower reaches of the charts: Jamie J. Morgan, Boom Crash Opera, Margaret Urlich...it's funny how songs like this might not necessarily be your favourites, but you remember them well enough anyway.
Rating: 7/10
