Music Industry Titan Seymour Stein Gone at 80

Remembering the Sire Records co-founder who gave us Madonna, The Ramones, Talking Heads and so much more

April 2, 2023February 19, 2024 Ron Hart 0 Comments Against Me!, Aphex Twin, Depeche Mode, Dinosaur Jr., Echo & The Bunnymen, Ice-T, k.d. lang, Madness, Madonna, Ministry, RIP, Seal, Seymour Stein, Sire Records, Talking Heads, The Cure, The Pretenders, The Ramones, The Smiths, Wilco

Seymour Stein, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame co-founder of Sire Records who helped bring the New York City underground into the mainstream, has died following a battle with cancer. He was 80.

“I grew up surrounded by music,” wrote Stein’s daughter Mandy in a family statement. “I didn’t have the most conventional upbringing, but I wouldn’t change my life and my relationship with my dad for anything, and he was a loving and caring grandfather who took pleasure in every moment with his three granddaughters. He gave me the ultimate soundtrack, as well as his wicked sense of humor. I am beyond grateful for every minute our family spent with him, and that the music he brought to the world impacted so many people’s lives in a positive way.”

In addition to signing such legendary punk acts as the Ramones, Talking Heads, Richard Hell and the Voidoids and the Dead Boys to Sire, Stein was also responsible for bringing Madonna to the label as well.

“I signed her because I believed in Mark Kamins, who I thought was the greatest DJ, and he wanted to be a producer,” he once said in reference to signing the Material Girl. “So I gave him some money to bring me an artist and the third or fourth thing he brought me was Madonna. And yes, I was very involved in the beginning. Then I realized, ‘This woman is smarter than all of us. Just get out of her way.’”

Stein, who was renowned for his impeccable ear and encyclopedic knowledge of music, co-founded Sire with Richard Gottehrer in 1967 as an independent record label, but united with Warner Bros. Records nine years later, in 1976, where he would become Vice President.

Additional names that Stein would sign to Sire included the Pretenders, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Seal, The Smiths, Echo & The Bunnymen, Ice-T, Dinosaur Jr., Ministry, k.d. lang, Madness, Wilco, Aphex Twin and Against Me!, whose singer Laura Jane Grace took to Instagram to express her condolences.

“A good part of the reason why Against Me! signed to Warner/Sire was because of the label he built, the artists he signed,” she wrote. “We weren’t interested in Warner, we wanted to be a part of Sire! And of all the label suits we ever met he was the one who measured up beyond the hype. Stood on stage behind our amps the whole set, dripping sweat right with us at the Underworld in London back in 2007… ‘it was like the Alamo out there, the bodies just kept coming’… Will never forget the day he came into the studio while we were recording New Wave. Butch played him the song ‘White People For Peace’ and after the song ended there was a pause and then Seymour said ‘Well, Johnny Ramone would have either loved it or hated it!’ And then there was the night that Seymour brought Bill Paxton out partying with us to celebrate the album release, probably should not share all those details but goddamn what a fun time, I’ll never forget it. Thank you Seymour, rest easy!”

There’s so much to the story of Mr. Stein, it will make for a fantastic television series. His career began in 1955 at the tender age of 13, when he was granted access to the Billboard archives, where he painstakingly wrote down two decades of charts. Stein became a full-time member of the Billboard staff after graduating high school.

In 1961, he moved to Cincinnati, where he worked for King Records, getting his first experience on the label side of the business. Stein returned to New York two years later to work with George Goldner, who had joined forces with legendary songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller to form Red Bird Records, headquartered in the Brill Building.

In 2005, Stein was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an organization which he co-founded in 1983, and in 2016, he was honored by the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2017, Sire Records celebrated its 50th anniversary. In 2018, he released his autobiography, Siren Song: My Life in Music.

He is survived by his daughter, Mandy, his sister, Ann Wiederkehr, and three grandchildren.

Seymour Stein was indeed one of the last Great American Record Men, the likes of which we shall never see again. May he rest in peace.