, which remains the magazine’s flagship singles chart. In the early 1960s, he worked at King and Red Bird, a short-lived label founded with the songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller; its first release, the Dixie Cups’In 1966, Stein went into business with Richard Gottehrer, a young producer and songwriter who had established himself with hits like the Angels’. Mixing up the first two letters of each man’s given name — S, E, R and I — they called their new company Sire.
After the Ramones, Stein signed Talking Heads to Sire, and soon also brought to the label Echo and the Bunnymen, the Pretenders and Soft Cell . Sire had its first No. 1 hit in 1979 withStein made his most successful signing while hospitalised for a heart condition in 1982. Madonna Ciccone, a young singer and dancer, was beginning to attract industry attention for a demo tape of a song she had written called.
In the 1980s, he coaxed new albums from aging rock legends. He signed Brian Wilson for his first solo album, and Lou Reed for, the 1989 album that reestablished Reed’s credentials as a cold-eyed commentator on urban life. In later years, Stein remained at Warner Music, while the Sire imprint shuffled between divisions and was inactive for a time. He retired in 2018.