The iconic New York music entrepreneur Seymour Stein, who signed Madonna, Talking Heads, The Ramones, and many more, has passed away at the age of 80.
Stein founded the record company Sire in 1966 and rose to prominence in the punk, new wave, and pop movements.
He exposed the United States to British acts such as The Smiths, Fleetwood Mac, Depeche Mode, Seal, The Cure, and Madness.
“The music he gave to the world positively influenced the lives of so many people,” his daughter Mandy remarked.
His other signings included Ice-T, The Pretenders, KD Lang, and Richard Hell & the Voidoids. He was one of the industry’s most successful talent scouts.
Stein entered the music industry in the 1950s at the age of 13, when he convinced the industry publication Billboard to give him a desk in its headquarters.
After school, he would go there to replicate their charts from the preceding two decades and educate himself by reading bound-back editions.
At school, he listened to music on a portable radio while persuading teachers that it was a hearing aid and that he was little deaf.
Stein told BBC News in 2008,
“When rock ‘n’ roll arrived, I was right there on the ground floor.” “I was stunned, and it consumed my life.”
Stein joined King Records, which launched James Brown’s career, before working in the New York music industry’s Brill Building with composers and producers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
Along with lyricist Richard Gottehrer, he founded Sire. In the 1970s, Sire became well-known with its tennis ball “S” logo after Stein signed the group that is largely recognized as the first punk band.
Stein had planned to attend The Ramones in 1975, but he became “terminally ill,” so he sent his wife Linda, a teacher, in his place.
“She returned raving,” he stated. “I had just consumed so much chicken soup that the next day I was able to rent a small studio for an hour to hear them perform.
“After 15 minutes, the situation was resolved. They must have performed between fifteen and eighteen songs within that brief period. Everyone was impressed by their demeanor, but I was most impressed with their tunes. I heard wonderful melodies.”
Avant-garde pioneers
Stein discovered Talking Heads for the first time at a Ramones concert.
“I felt chills all over,” he recounted.
“I stood there paralyzed, and when they ended I stepped onstage to assist them with their equipment. I attempted to sign them immediately, but it was the longest courtship in the history of Sire Records, lasting eleven and a half months.
Seymour claimed to have invented the term “new wave,” but his greatest triumph occurred in 1982 when a DJ named Mark Kamins advised him to listen to a new artist named Madonna.
Stein was suffering from a heart infection at the time.
“Within days, even before I was released from the hospital, she began recording her debut single, Everyone, and we were off to the races.”
According to Stein, Madonna’s hunger for success “clinched the deal.”
Madonna wrote on Instagram following the news of Stein’s passing that he was “one of the most significant guys in my life.”
I knew she would work just as hard as I did, if not harder because she possessed the tenacity required of an artist. She worked harder than anyone else.
Stein was a fan of British music; he was a partner on Fleetwood Mac’s initial label, Blue Horizon, and he secured licensing agreements with British companies such as Rough Trade and Creation.
He purchased The Smiths following their performance at the ICA in London.
“I signed the band immediately after the show before I had even picked up the gladiolas Morrissey had thrown at me from the stage,” he added.
Johnny Marr, the guitarist for The Smiths, stated in the liner notes of a 2006 Sire box set,
“He was one of the only individuals in the United States who got it. We wanted to be on Sire.”
Dave Gahan, the lead singer of Depeche Mode, remarked,
“He had the confidence to sign the types of bands I grew up listening to while everyone else was terrified and bewildered.”
Ian McCulloch of Echo and the Bunnymen stated that Stein had “the best taste and ears I’ve ever known,” while Alan McGee, founder of Creation, referred to him as “my role model in the music industry.”
Stein was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005, where he was praised for his ability to “hear the future.”
Ice-T introduced him on stage at that ceremony, saying,
“When you put Mighty Lemon Drops, The Ramones, Madonna, Talking Heads, Depeche Mode, Ministry, and Ice-T together, it doesn’t look like they belong.
“Still they do it. Each had an advantage. This was Seymour’s passion.”
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