Sigman tease

ONLY 10 RECORDS IN THE TOP 10: In the latest installment of his stroll down the music biz memory lane, Michael Sigman says he’s sometimes found himself “longing for the music-filled days and nights of the 1970s, when I edited the N.Y.-based trade magazine Record World and there was such a thing as a free lunch. Also free concert tickets, press junkets, lavish record company parties and more promo T-shirts than your cleaners could launder in a lifetime. I got yelled at regularly in that job too, mainly because there could only be 10 records in the Top 10, a mathematical certainty not always appreciated by the honchos and hustlers whose livelihoods (and egos) tended to be a function of their records' chart positions. But those guys were usually acting rather than acting out, and if I'm going to be abused, it might as well be about my favorite topic.” This is must-read stuff for veterans to the label wars as well as music-biz scholars. (8/20a)