Remember the glory days of Sire Records? There have been precious few major labels with such an exemplary track record — the kind that made you feel like you could buy everything they released because, statistically, the odds were way in your favor that you were going to come up with a winner. Sire Records sure as hell fell into that category. Technically, they were just a subsidiary of a major label — they started as an independent, founded by Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer in 1966, then they were acquired by Warner Brothers in 1978 — but still, they were one of the coolest cogs in the WB machine.

Although one of the biggest stars in the world was on the label (Madonna), I didn’t manage to fall into Sire’s gravitational pull until I got my first CD player, but once I picked up the label’s 1987 compilation Just Say Yes, I started buying albums left and right by the artists who were represented on the disc.

If you’re not familiar with the collection in question, it’s no understatement to call it a near-perfect sampling of what was cool in alternative music in the post-new-wave/pre-grunge era, featuring tracks from Depeche Mode, Echo & the Bunnymen, the Mighty Lemon Drops, James, the Smiths, the Ramones, the Replacements, Aztec Camera, Erasure, Throwing Muses, Figures on a Beach, the Wild Swans, Jerry Harrison’s Casual Gods, and even Ice-T. Not too shabby, eh? And Just Say Yes proved so successful that it spawned six — count ‘em, six — sequels, with each volume sporting a title that played off the original, including Just Say Yo, Just Say Da, and Just Say Anything, to name a few.

In 1995, however, Sire moved from the Warner Brothers family and went to crash with their cousin Elektra Records, and … well, frankly, the magic was gone. Indeed, I’m of the suspicion that the label itself might have been gone, as I can find no significant release under the Sire banner for the better part of two years; 1996 saw nothing emerge, and the first three-quarters of 1997 only resulted in jazz albums which came out as joint releases with JVC.

But in late 1997, the label began to stir once more, making an unabashed attempt to reproduce its earlier successes by digging for the best and the brightest in rising new talent. A lot of great stuff made it into stores as a result, including records by the Apples in Stereo (Tone Soul Evolution), Jolene (In the Gloaming), Clem Snide (Your Favorite Music), and Taxiride (Imaginate), as well as Rialto’s self-titled album and Shaken and Stirred: The David Arnold James Bond Project. I’d have to guess that not a single album in that bunch ever recouped its initial investment via its U.S. sales, but every one of them made enough of an impression on me that they’re all still in my collection today. The greatest impression, however, was made by a trio of lads from Stamford, Lincolnshire, who called themselves Midget.

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