[1] Hot Gossip spent two years performing in Munkberry's club in Jermyn Street, London W1, where Phillips and manager/producers Michael Summerton and Iain Burton developed the group's act.

In 1978, during their initial impact period on The Kenny Everett Video Show, Hot Gossip, featuring Sarah Brightman on lead vocals, recorded "I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper",[2] a disco song written by Jeff Calvert and Geraint Hughes.

[3] In 1981, the group recorded a cover version of Suzanne Fellini's "Love on the Phone", and the same year released the synth-pop album Geisha Boys and Temple Girls, produced by former Human League and then current Heaven 17/BEF member Martyn Ware.

Hot Gossip were noted for the risqué nature of their costumes and dance routines, designed and choreographed by Phillips, especially considering the early evening timeslot for The Kenny Everett Video Show.

In late 1979 Mark Tyme, Dom Wood, Lorraine Whitmarsh, Carol Fletcher, Lyndsey Ward, Donna Fielding and Lee Black left Hot Gossip to form Sponooch, which was featured in the BBC TV shows Friday Night Saturday Morning (1979) and Dancing Girls (6 January 1982).