With the announcement this week that Seymour Stein is leaving his post within the Warner Brothers organization, so ends one of the most influential careers in all of music. As co-founder (with producer Richard Gottehrer) of Sire Productions in 1966, Stein turned an initial $10,000 investment into one of the most influential labels in American music and a career spanning six decades.
Within a few short years, Sire would go through numerous distribution arrangements and establish itself as a truly independent label not only capable of breaking new acts, but new genres as well.
By signing the Ramones and, later, Talking Heads, the Pretenders, and the Dead Boys, the label immediately went from promoting mostly prog-oriented fare to jumping on the new wave bandwagon.
But first, Stein had to build the bandwagon.
In order to do so, Stein teamed up with Warner Brothers for distribution in 1977 before selling Sire to the Bunny outright a year later, but remaining as the label's President, during which he continued to sign artists like Depeche Mode, Madonna, and the Replacements, among others.
In honor of Stein's legacy as one of the greatest scouts of talent in rock history, we've assembled this Sire Records playlist of some of his greatest hits and more.