11 - The Michigan Daily - Monday, December 13, 199
1981: Started in 1977,
Apple Computers,
Inc. brings the
personal computer
to the height of
technology in the
1980s. Harvard
University drop-out
Bill Gates
introduces Microsoft, making himself
a billionaire along the way.
1982: "'Cause this is thriller, thriller
night." Under a full moon,
Michael Jackson turns werewolf,
and the white-gloved King of Pop
defines himself as a lasting symbol
of '80s music.
9
MILLENNIUM-
Iran Contra. Madonna. The fall of th
computer. "Just say no." Garbage I
The Challenger explosion. MTV. "Th
The~V * .tookse enc
the o -of ryone . ses ,
World ange uic
Activism lives
1984: For eight
seasons, viewers
tune into The
Cosby Show on
NBC's powerhouse
Thursday night
line-u to follow
the wholesome
comedy and love of
the progressive
Huxtable family.
on
'
campus
1,
Courtesy of Madonna Vison
Madonna's changing facade is emblematic of how musicians gained control of their images in recent years.
Decade brings. auteur
theory to music 10"industry
By Michael Grass
Daily Staff Reporter
The University has always been a
center of collegiate activism.
Although the the civil rights and anti-
war protests of the 1960s and '70s
made Ann Arbor famous, the rallying
calls and demonstrations of the past
20 years were just as intense and fer-
vent.
. The University's investments in
ple an ocean away, University stu-
dents turned their activism for many
years to their own rights.
In March of 1988, students across
campus were enraged by the regents'
decision to approve interim
University President Robben
Fleming's proposal for the non-acad-
emic Code of Student Conduct.
Promising a quick response and
calling for the downfall of the policy.
1984: Donnie
Wahlberg and his.
New Kids on the
Block cohorts are
"hang in' tough"
with hordes of
adoring teenage
girls at every stop
on the road. The
Uintet emerges as
Se leading boy
.band of the decade.
companies operating
in South Africa pro-"
vided focus for many
protests in the early
1980s.
University
Investments in
1985: Motley Crue hit the creative
v80s hair-band genre, with Vince
Niel's blonde locks and the likes of
Mick Mars, Nikki Six and Tommy
Lee.
By Jason Birchmeier
Daily Arts Writer
The 1990s has seen the rise of
the auteur within the world of pop-
ular music. One-man bands contin-
ue to replace traditional bands such
as the Beatles and Guns N' Roses.
This trend toward one creative
mind, instead of multiple minds,
can be attributed to advances in
technology, a changing market-
place and a drive toward creativity.
Just when it seemed like the '90s
were going to be a decade of musi-
cal collectives, the likes of the Bon
Jovi and the Eagles, everything fell
apart. Arena bands such as REM
and U2 alienated their once mass
audiences and most of the big
groups such as Soundgarden and
NWA broke up. It was at this point
early in the decade that the concept
of the auteur could finally be
applied not just to cinema but also
to music.
A French term that surfaced in
the 1950s to describe filmmakers
such as John Ford, Howard
Hawkes and Alfred Hitchcock,
auteurs can be thought of as artists
who possess complete creative
control over their work, despite
the traditionally collaborative
nature of their chosen medium.
There had been a few auteurs
within popular music over the past
few decades such as Bob Dylan,
Neil Young and Prince, but by the
late '80s, each of these artists was
struggling with decreasing album
sales and declining audiences.
Two prominent auteurs came out
of nowhere early in the '90s to
dominate the music marketplace
with their technological sounds and
pave the way for others.
The first of these two, Trent
Reznor, released his first album as
Nine Inch Nails in late 1989,
"Pretty Hate Machine" The pinna-
cle of the industrial rock move-
ment, Reznor's debut was the work
of one man and many machines,
foreshadowing what was to come.
Without anyone to interfere,
Reznor took synthesizers, drum
machines and overdriven guitars
and combined them with pop rock
song structures and catchy vocal
hooks to create an innovative yet
accessible album for the masses.
While Reznor was changing the
world of rock. Dr. Dre made similar
innovations within the then expo-
nentially expanding world of hip-
hop. Alongside Ice Cube and Easy-
E, Dre had spent the latter part of
the '80s collaborating with a con-
troversial group of.rappers known
as NWA (Niggas Wit' Attitude).
When the group broke up in
1991, Dre became free of his for-
mer collaborators and returned in
1993 with an ambitious album
called "The Chronic." The product
of one man's vision and talents,
"The Chronic" not only featured
Dre's rhymes but also featured his
production and a cast of rappers
handpicked by Dre for his personal
record label, Death Row.
After producing an equally mas-
sive follow-up album later that year,
"Doggystyle" it became clear that
the team setting of NWA had only
held back his creativity.
Many other auteurs followed the
paths blazed by Reznor and Dre.
Though they worked with a sup-
porting cast similar to Dre's ensem-
ble of co-starring rappers, Billy
Corgan and Rza proved to be two of
the '90s most successful auteurs.
As the authoritarian leader of the
Smashing Pumpkins, Corgan
seemed to only treat his fellow
band members as necessary obsta-
cles in 1993's "Siamese Dream"
and 1995's "Mellon Collie and the
Infinite Sadness"
The backbone to the mon-
strous Wu-Tang Clan, Rza pro-
duced all the music for the clan's
countless early solo albums by
artists such as Method Man and
01' Dirty Bastard. Beginning
with 1993's "Enter the Wu Tang,"
Rza crafted a unique musical
style of his own, an east-coast
idiosyncratic fantasy version of
Dre's West Coast G-funk.
As once underground genres such
as alternative rock, rap and electron-
ic music become increasingly main-
stream, there may soon be no need
for traditional bands. Within the
worlds of alternative rock and rap,
auteurs such as Tori Amos, Beck,
Puff Daddy and Master P are now
selling many albums.
Many students felt
that investing in a
country that
embraced apartheid r
was harmful. focus f
The day before the
University Board of 1 0
Regents was getting
ready to vote on the rotes
future of the
University's invest-
ments in South Africa, students gath-
ered in front of the President's House
on South University Avenue, where
the regents met informally with then-
University President Harold Shaprio
to discuss divestment over dinner.
When protestors, holding placards
and wearing black armbands as a
symbol of solidarity, blocked the
regents' way, regents had to push
through the angered students whose
voices rang into the President's
House.
John Powell, head of Trotter
House, knelt near the front door of
Shaprio's residence.
"To kneel is to accept the provi-
dence of justice and to accept that
people do not have conscience,"
Powell said in an article printed in
The Michigan Daily April 14,
1983.
In a 6-2 vote the following day,
the regents decided to divest from
South Africa-- the largest such
action by any public institution in
the nation.
After fighting for the rights of peo-
Africa
for
student
ts.
Michigan Daily.
But more than 10 years later and
after numerous battles with the
administration, the Code, although
revised, remains.
Despite the revisions, it appears
the Code will continue to govern 0
the student body, current MSA
President Bram Elias said, student
activism has played a large role in
Code reform.
Elias said changes to the code
could be approved by University
President Lee Bollinger in March.
Elias with two lawsuits challenging
the University's use of race as a factor
in admissions and the fight against
sweatshops as top campus issues, stu-___
dents have been able to organize bet
ter.
"Students are always active and
passionate, but students have been
able to better organize because
we've been more privy to informa-
tion on these issues," Elias said.
"If we want something to change,
we have to push the administra-
tion. We have to act."
anti-Code activists ,
were gearing up for a
fight with the admin-
istration.
"The regents are
in for a big surprise
if they think the
code battle is over,"
said Michigan
Student Assembly
Student Rights com-
mittee chair
Michael Phillips in
a written statement
in the March 19,
1988 edition of The
1985: Run DM.C. is
one of the first to
infuse rap into.
mainstream music.
The group is best
known its
collaboration with
the band Aerosmith
on the hit "Walk
this Way" in 1986.
1986: Millions
watch in shock as
the Challenger
spaceshuttle d
explodes off the
coast of Cape
Canaveral Fla.,
~ shortly after
take-off on ]an.
8. The accident
kills all seven astronauts.
WHAT WERE WE
Fads dominate youth culture
By Hanna LoPatin
Daily Staff Reporter
For this generation of University students -
the same pre-teens and early adolescents explor-
ing the definition of personal style in the late
1980s and early 1990s - memories of bangle
bracelets, M.C. Hammer jam pants and hair
sprayed high into the sky are scary reminders of
fads and styles of the time.
"I remember those huge bangs." LSA junior
Cathy Blueteau said. And side ponytails? '"I did
do those" she said. "The crimper. I'm sad to say
I did that once, too."
LSA first-year student Julie Morelli laughed as
she recalled the brightly colored fashions. "I have
so many pictures of me in fluorescent outfits."
she said.
Rhtian and her friends Kinisieoloov iunior
Johnson, who defined a trend as being a "drive to
identify with a phantom public by having rela-
tions mediated through things," explained this
pop culture concept.
Trends often are new versions of fads and
styles from the past. In the 1890s and early 20th
Century, trends drew from the neo-classical era
that occurred hundreds of years earlier, said
Johnson, whose expertise is in late 19th Century
American culture. Trends of the past 20 years
have been "citations of decades that are far more
approximate," he explained.
The '80s saw a resurgence of pop culture from
the 1950s while fashion of the '90s drew from the
'60s and '70s.
"When I see Fiona Apple (singing) on a shag
carpet, it reminds me of growing up as a child,"
Johnson said. What strikes me as odd is "for the
1y989: The Berlin Wall falls, bringing
East and West Berlin together
-after 28 years of division.
Germans breaking off pieces of
'the graffiti-covered stone structure
mark an end to Communist rule
14n tho rmintru
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