Seymour Stein, Sire Records founder who signed Madonna and co-founded Rock Hall, has died at 80

3 April, 2023

Seymour Stein – a legendary executive responsible for launching the careers of Madonna, Talking Heads, The Pretenders, the Ramones and more – has died at the age of 80.

His passing was confirmed by his youngest daughter Mandy, who told The New York Times that he died in his Los Angeles home on Sunday (April 2) after a battle with cancer.

Stein was born in New York City on April 18, 1942. He became enamoured with the music industry in high school, and at 15 (in 1957), worked a summer internship at King Records in Cincinnati. He became a clerk for Billboard just a year later, and in 1961, took on a permanent role at King. 

It was in 1966 that Stein – alongside record producer Richard Gottehrer – would found Sire Productions. The pair each invested $10,000 (today amounting to a little under $93,000) and started out by introducing the underground sounds of British prog-rock to the American market. By the mid-1970s, Sire was a force to be reckoned with in the US’ new wave and punk scenes, with Stein signing both the Ramones and Talking Heads in 1975.

Stein’s biggest moves came in the early 1980s, signing The Pretenders at the turn of the decade, and Madonna in 1982. He remained Sire’s president – as well as the vice president of Warner Bros. Records – until he retired from the music industry in July of 2018. He was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame (which he co-founded in 1983) in 2005, and in 2016, was crowned with the Richmond Hitmaker Award in the Songwriters Hall Of Fame.

The same year he retired, Stein published his autobiography, Siren Song: My Life In Music. A year prior, at age 75, he came out as gay.

Have a look at some of the tributes shared to honour Stein over the past few hours:

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