Seymour Stein, record executive who signed Madonna, Ramones and Talking Heads, dies at 80

Seymour Stein, the record industry executive who helped shape the sound of 20th century pop music by signing the Ramones, Talking Heads, the Pretenders and Madonna to his Sire label, died on Sunday in Los Angeles. He was 80.

The cause of death was cancer, said his daughter, Mandy Stein.

Stein belonged to a rarefied group of music executives who gained fame on their own accord. His notoriety was so great and lasting that the Scottish indie-pop outfit Belle and Sebastian wrote a song chronicling his attempt to sign them to Sire in 1996, more than 20 years after the label’s golden era began with the release of the first album by punk originators the Ramones in 1975.

Sire released some of the most adventurous music from punk and new wave. Stein brought Talking Heads, a cerebral CBGBs cohort of the Ramones, to Sire in 1976, then expanded the label’s roster with Chrissie Hynde’s swaggering Pretenders and the noir-ish vistas of U.K. post-punk outfit Echo & the Bunnymen.

Seymour Stein being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2005.

(Julie Jacobson / Associated Press)

All other Sire signings were overshadowed by Madonna, a New York-based singer whose stylish dance pop refashioned the sound and appearance of pop in the 1980s. Stein famously signed Madonna while laid up in a hospital bed, and she stuck with the label as she became the biggest pop star in the world.

Stein’s influence extended outside of Sire. While acting as president of the label — he stayed in that position until his retirement in 2018 — he helped co-found the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1983. He was inducted into the institution in 2005.

But before Stein was a mover and shaker, his passion for music helped change the contours of the industry. As an intern at Billboard magazine in 1958, he was part of the team that developed the Hot 100, the chart that became the industry standard. In his 2018 memoir “Siren Song: My Life in Music,” Stein wrote: “My business was turning great music into hit records.”

This story will be updated.