Alternative Rock Compilations music reviews

Sire Records founder Seymour Stein ostensibly seems a throwback to an earlier era when mini-moguls stamped their label's releases with their own idiosyncratic tastes. But the impossibly rich canon chronicled here argues Stein was driven more by a shrewd, far-ranging artistic vision than mere personal musical obsessions. Released to commemorate Stein and Sire's 30th anniversary with distributor Warners, the 81 songs here (spanning three CD's and a 20-video DVD) range across some of the most successful trendsetters of the era, especially the late '70s and '80s, a period when the label's fortunes and artistic philosophies welcomed even commercially risky, if ever artistically rewarding projects like Brian Wilson's long-anticipated 1988 solo album (represented here by the bittersweet "Love and Mercy"). Indeed, the Sire releases sampled here often virtually define both era and style, be it nascent ‘70s NYC punk (the Ramones, Richard Hell and the Voidoids), such blue-beat drenched British standouts as Madness and English Beat, the cream of ‘80s UK new wave and synth pop (Soft Cell, Erasure, Depeche Mode, the Cure, Echo & the Bunnymen, Pet Shop Boys) or such disparate North American-rooted icons as Madonna, Talking Heads, The Pretenders and k. d. lang. Sponsoring those artists alone would have secured Stein's legacy, but this anthology argues he was never one for resting on his laurels, as later standout tracks by the Replacements, My Bloody Valentine, Barenaked Ladies>, Wilco Ministry and Throwing Muses attest. The label's one-hit wonders were often as intriguing, highlighted here by The Rezillos' manic "Top of the Pops," M's infectious "Pop Muzik," the electro-mordant "Warm Leatherette" by The Normal, Laid Back's slinky "White Horse" and the spunky, Gallic pop-bop of Plastic Bertrand's "Ca Plane Pour Moi." The liner notes may lean to often gushing personal tributes from Stein's artists, friends and associates, but the wealth of his label's musical riches sampled herein argue he's more than earned them. -- Jerry McCulley