As reported April 2, 2023, Seymour Stein, Sire Data co-founder who signed Madonna, The Ramones & different legendary artists, died at age 80. Stein started his storied profession within the music trade as a youngster at Billboard, the place, as an intern after faculty, he contributed to the founding of the Billboard Sizzling 100 chart. The next interview was carried out and initially revealed in 2015.
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“I take a look at my education as, partly, my early years at Billboard.”
That’s how Sire Data co-founder and Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame enshrinee Seymour Stein, who in January 2021 oversaw the relaunch of the Blue Horizon label in partnership with Fats Possum, recalled his trade training.
That upbringing included the disclosing of the Billboard Sizzling 100 chart within the journal’s Aug. 4, 1958, problem. On the time, Stein was a highschool scholar desperate to be taught, and assist form, the music enterprise, absorbing data firsthand from inside Billboard’s workplaces.
The Sizzling 100’s scorching shot debut wasn’t front-page information, nevertheless it did make web page two, in an editorial succinctly headlined “The Billboard Sizzling 100”: “On pages 36 and 37 of this problem, we’re proud to current The Billboard Sizzling 100, the quickest, most full and most delicate index to the recognition of recorded music in America. This new chart characteristic, which every week will checklist the 100 hottest recorded sides, is a information to potential, in addition to the present hits.”
When the rating premiered, dominated by Ricky Nelson’s “Poor Little Idiot,” it encompassed “such components as [radio] disc jockey performs, jukebox exercise and file gross sales.” Immediately, airplay remains to be among the many Sizzling 100’s knowledge combine, with downloads persevering with the type of file gross sales. Streaming is basically a modern-era, digital jukebox, with clicks of a mouse having changed the clicks of a mechanical arm deciding on and dropping a forty five completely into place.
On the coronary heart of the Sizzling 100’s launch was then-head of charts Tom Noonan, together with music-radio-TV editor Paul Ackerman and Stein. “Tom and Paul have been nice mentors to me,” says Stein. “It was such an honor when Tom requested me to assist begin the Sizzling 100.”
Just like in the present day, as Billboard wrote in its story unwrapping the primary Sizzling 100, “Knowledge is obtained and tabulated proper as much as deadline time” (with Luminate knowledge figures having fueled the chart since 1991, and a number of streaming sources having joined in recent times). “Weighted components within the carefully-designed components consequence [in] the quickest and most full information to the nationwide recognition of data.”
Whereas the Sizzling 100 marks over six a long time because the chronicle of American hits, Stein’s legacy has likewise turn into legendary. Sire’s first signee? Steven Tallarico. Then in a band known as Chain Response, he’d change his identify to Steven Tyler as frontman for Aerosmith. In 1975, Sire signed the Ramones and Speaking Heads. The Pretenders adopted in 1980 and Madonna in 1982. (“I noticed, ‘This girl is smarter than all of us. Simply get out of her means,’” Stein stated of Madonna in 2012.) Different acts Sire signed in that formative period: Depeche Mode, The Remedy, The Smiths and Ice-T.
In 2005, Stein was inducted into the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame, in its lifetime-achievement class. In 2012, he was honored as Billboard’s first Icon Award recipient, offered to him on the annual MIDEM trade gathering in Cannes, France.
Right here, in Stein’s phrases (from an interview first revealed in 2015), is his recollection of how the Sizzling 100 originated, the way it helped velocity up the measurement of hits, because of the inclusion of radio airplay knowledge, and the story of how the chart’s identify was (presumably) chosen.
On the necessity for a then-new chart: “Again within the day, earlier than the Sizzling 100, there have been many various charts in Billboard reflecting the success of singles within the market [including] Greatest-Promoting Pop Singles in Shops, Jukebox Favorites, Most-Heard on the Radio and Sheet Music.
“Then, there was an total chart which was known as the Honor Roll of Hits. This was a [composition, not singles] chart, as a result of again in these days, there have been a number of variations of nearly each track. Typically three or 4 or extra have been profitable, like within the case of ‘Unchained Melody.’ To indicate the energy of the track, the Honor Roll of Hits would checklist the factors of all variations to acquire a place.
“Again then, jukebox gross sales have been huge. If a scorching artist, like Perry Como, Patti Web page or Nat ‘King’ Cole, with a profitable observe file put out a brand new single, file shops knew easy methods to order primarily based on their latest gross sales. However, within the case of latest artists, and there have been quite a lot of them in these early days of rock & roll, shops had no means of being guided. Extra urgently, jukebox operators wanted to know shortly to get these new data into their machines.
“It was the jukeboxes, specifically, that first instigated the necessity for a quicker means of creating the charts. Luckily, this was across the similar time because the daybreak of high 40 radio, and the Sizzling 100 used radio playlists from throughout the nation weighted by the dimensions of the market to assist compile this new chart.
“It wasn’t solely error-free or 100% correct; bear in mind, this was [1958]. I used to be simply 16, working at Billboard after faculty. From the time I used to be 9 years previous, I knew I wished to be within the music enterprise.”
On Billboard’s editorial influence: “As necessary because the charts have been, the Billboard evaluation classes that picked highlight winners of the week have been much more necessary. If a file was accorded a highlight evaluation, it may stir the gross sales upwards of 75,000 copies by jukebox operators alone within the first week. Earlier than the Sizzling 100, the charts have been so sluggish, the jukebox operators couldn’t await these data to show themselves and needed to go by the evaluations in Billboard.
“Paul Ackerman invited me to attend these music evaluation classes on Wednesday nights and even offered me with a due-bill to remain at one of many accommodations near the Billboard workplaces and that means I may rise up and take the subway to Lafayette Excessive Faculty in Brooklyn. It was at these classes that I met folks like Syd Nathan of King Data, Leonard Chess, George Goldner, Lew Chudd of Imperial, Herman Lubinksy of Savoy, Don Pierce of Starday and publishers like Freddy Bienstock and Al Gallico, to call a couple of.”
As for the identify Sizzling 100? “I can solely think about that what the trade was in search of was a warmer, faster means of getting chart data. Tom [Noonan] may have provide you with the identify. I actually didn’t. It might need been one of many reporters, or Paul Ackerman. I simply don’t bear in mind. Then we added star performers to indicate fast motion upward, aka, bullets.
“Response was, in fact, optimistic from each nook of the music enterprise. These have been nonetheless the early days of rock & roll. Mitch Miller and Hugo Winterhalter have been nonetheless the heads of A&R of Columbia and RCA Victor, the 2 main majors, and rooting for rock & roll to not occur. Milt Gabler over at Decca was the primary of the majors to embrace rock & roll and it was Steve Sholes at RCA who organized to purchase Elvis Presley’s contract from Solar; however not with out first taking the recommendation of Paul Ackerman.
“File shops actually reacted favorably and radio stations, too.
“By means of the success of the chart, extra execs have been drawn as much as the Billboard workplaces, typically with their artists in tow, whether or not it was for a narrative or simply to say thanks for acknowledging their No. 1 place.”
