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Curated playlist

Sire Records artists

  • MadonnaMadonna arrived in New York in 1978 with thirty-five dollars. It was her first plane ride and first taxi.
  • RamonesThe Ramones, an American punk rock band from Queens in New York City, performed 2,263 concerts across 22 years of near-constant touring. They released fourteen studio albums along the way. Most of those records barely troubled the charts,…
  • Sire RecordsTwo men put in ten thousand dollars each to start Sire Productions in 1966.
  • Brian WilsonOn a flight to Houston in 1964, Brian Wilson broke down sobbing. He then quit touring with the Beach Boys.
  • Jerry Lee LewisJerry Lee Lewis feared his own hit song was blasphemous.
  • Cyndi LauperCyndi Lauper wore almost a pound of necklaces to the Grammy Awards ceremony in 1985. The excess suited the woman wearing it. Lauper is an American singer, songwriter and actress, born on the 22nd of June 1953. She is known for eccentric…
  • Lou ReedLou Reed made a record that almost nobody bought, and a future president of Czechoslovakia still credited it with changing his life. Václav Havel picked up The Velvet Underground & Nico while visiting the United States. He later said it…
  • Depeche ModeDave Gahan won a place in Depeche Mode by singing one Bowie song. He performed "Heroes" at a local Scout hut.
  • David ByrneDavid Byrne was turned away from his middle school choir, which judged him "off-key and too withdrawn". That boy grew up to be an American musician, writer, visual artist and filmmaker. Over his career he has received an Academy Award, a…
  • Seal (musician)Seal, born Seal Henry Olusegun Olumide Adeola Samuel, has sold more than 20 million albums or singles. The British singer, songwriter and record producer holds three Brit Awards, four Grammy Awards and an MTV Video Music Award. He also won…
  • Debbie HarryDebbie Harry spent 1979 handing out a reminder that she was not her own band. That year Blondie ran a button campaign with a blunt slogan: "Blondie is a group." The pins existed because the public kept confusing the woman at the microphone…
  • Ice-TIce-T got his stage name when friends heard him recite novels by Iceberg Slim.
  • MorrisseySteven Patrick Morrissey, known to the world as Morrissey, once led a tour of Manchester for the Oxford Road Show in 1985. Late in that tour he reached the secondary school he had attended. He described it in harsh terms and closed with a…

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