Music exec who discovered Madonna dies aged 81

Seymour Stein has died at the age of 81.

The music executive – who was behind the careers of acts such as Depeche Mode and the Ramones through Sire Records – was the first person to sign global superstar Madonna when she was an unknown in 1983 but passed away on Sunday (02.04.23) following a battle with cancer, his daughter Mandy confirmed to Variety.

She told the outlet: “I grew up surrounded by music. I didn’t have the most conventional upbringing, but I wouldn’t change my life and my relationship with my dad for anything, and he was a loving and caring grandfather who took pleasure in every moment with his three granddaughters. He gave me the ultimate soundtrack, as well as his wicked sense of humor. I am beyond grateful for every minute our family spent with him, and that the music he brought to the world impacted so many people’s lives in a positive way.”

Seymour – whose late wife Linda passed away in 2007 – started out in the music industry as a teenager when he began submitting reviews to Billboard magazine before segueing into the recording side of the industry at King Records in his twenties.

In 1966, Seymour was approached by producer-songwriter Richard Gottehrer to create Sire Records together, and although their first few years were commercially poor, the duo later achieved success in the 1970s when they signed rock band Talking Heads.

In the early 1980s, Seymour was recovering from heart surgery when he heard a demo of ‘Everybody’ by a then-unknown Madonna and after signing the nightclub singer to his label, saw six of her albums achieve multi-platinum status with more than 10 million records sold.

In the 1990s, other signings onto the label included former Beach Boys frontman Brian Wilson, Canadian country/pop vocalist k.d. lang and although Seymour was not a songwriter, he was honoured by the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2016 with the Howie Richmond Hitmaker award two years before his retirement.