Sire's distribution deals with British independent labels including Mute, Rough Trade, Korova and Fiction gave WEA the American rights to important UK-based New Wave bands including Depeche Mode, the Smiths, the Beat, Madness, Echo & the Bunnymen, and the Cure. Into the 1990s, the label had continued success with Seal, k.d. lang, Tommy Page, Ice-T, and Ministry. In the late 1970s, Warner Bros. also scored mainstream pop hits with singer/actor Shaun Cassidy—his version of "Da Doo Ron Ron" went to No. 1 in the US in 1977, his next two singles (both penned by Eric Carmen) were US Top 10 hits and Cassidy was nominated for a Grammy award. As the decade drew to a close, there were more breakthroughs with new acts. Rickie Lee Jones' self-titled debut album went to No. 3 in the US, No. 1 in Australia and No. 18 in the UK and produced two hit singles, "Chuck E.'s In Love" (US #4) and "Young Blood" (US #40). Thanks to its American distribution deal with Vertigo, British group Dire Straits provided another sustained run of hit albums and singles in the late 1970s and 1980s. Their eponymous debut album (1978) was a surprise international hit, going to No. 2 in the US and earning a gold record award from the RIAA, while the single "Sultans of Swing" went to No. 4 in the US. Their second album Communiqué (1979) made the Top 20 in many countries and earned another gold record award in the US WBR also enjoyed renewed success with comedy recordings in this period, transferring Richard Pryor from Reprise and signing rising star Steve Martin, whose second Warner album A Wild and Crazy Guy (1978) became one of the label's biggest comedy hits—it reached No. 2 on the pop album chart, won the 1979 Grammy for 'Best Comedy Album', and Martin's novelty single, "King Tut" was a US Top 20 hit. In the 1970s there were different systems for four-channel stereo. Warner Records and the whole WEA group chose JVC's and RCA's discrete system called CD-4 or Quadradisc. That was the system with the highest separation between the four channel, but the system needed a special stylus that could read frequences up to 48 000 Hz. 1980–1988 The 1980s was a period of unprecedented success for Warner Bros. Records. The golden decade began with the success of singer-songwriter Christopher Cross, whose self-titled debut album