Record biz giant Seymour Stein died last Sunday at age 80. He was the co-founder of Sire Records, which he ran from 1966 until he stepped down in 2018. We’re have two archival interviews with Stein. Over his long career, he signed a wide range of pioneering artists from The Ramones and Madonna to Talking Heads, The Pretenders, k.d. lang and Ice-T.
Also, we listen back to our interview with Joni Mitchell. She recently received the Gershwin Prize for Popular Music.
Justin Chang reviews the film Air, about the origin story of Nike’s Air Jordans, starring and directed by Ben Affleck.