From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!ihnp4!ihps3!houxz!houxi!houxa!houxm!npois!npoiv!alice!mhtsa!eagle!mhuxt!mhuxa!mhuxh!mhuxm!pyuxjj!rlr
Newsgroups: net.records
Title: Re: Record Quality
Article-I.D.: pyuxjj.363
Posted: Tue Dec  7 08:44:40 1982
Received: Wed Dec  8 05:52:13 1982
References: mitccc.207 ihuxk.227

re: poor quality of Sire pressings

Sire Records has been sort of an orphaned company with no real "industry"
bigwigs behind it for a long time.  For a while, I believe they were
distributed by ABC (incl. such artists as Focus, Climax Blues Band).  They
were originally a fairly disorganized label with no common musical association
amongst its artists, a la early Elektra (folk).  This is very precarious for
a small label.

Then came the so-called new wave:  Ramones, Talking Heads, etc.  Sire, being
a small rather independent label, signed a number of these "punk" bands.
While looking for a means of marketing this "new sound", they coined the
term "new wave" as a euphemism for punk, even though artists like the Talking
Heads were far from punks.  When the whole scene became fashionable, Sire
was swallowed up by WEA (Warner Elektra Atlantic).  I believe that although
their independence and artistic integrity have probably diminished as a
result, the quality of their pressings is now up (down?) to industry standards.
This probably means they are no better then they once were, but the rest of
the record industry has approached their pressing quality from the other
direction.  Seriously, I now think Sire presses reasonable quality discs.