Broadcast and film in 1989. The microphone was introduced at the
Hannover Fair in 1971. From the 1970s onwards it could be seen in various television news programs, e.g. in Russia's main evening news program
Vremya. Four MD 441s are visible in
Barbara Klemm's famous 1979 photo of the
socialist fraternal kiss between Soviet general secretary
Leonid Brezhnev and
Erich Honecker. The later Serbian President
Slobodan Milošević spoke into six MD 441s at a large rally in Belgrade on 19 November 1988. At the
Alexanderplatz demonstration on 4 November 1989 in Berlin, the speeches were spoken into two MD 441s. On 19 December 1989,
Helmut Kohl spoke into an MD 441 in
Dresden at his first major appearance after the fall of the Berlin Wall. with two MD 541 Blackfire (2017) The British comedian
Sacha Baron Cohen used an MD 441 in the film
Brüno (2009) for his interview with
Paula Abdul, in which both sit on the backs of kneeling men. In the 2010s,
General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping was often pictured with two black MD 541 Blackfire at press conferences. Two MD 441s are used at the lectern in the House of Representatives of the Parliament of the Czech Republic.
Music The MD 441 has also been used as a vocal microphone since the 1970s, by artists including
Frank Zappa,
Fleetwood Mac singer
Stevie Nicks,
David Bowie, and by
The Cure lead singer
Robert Smith during the band's first television appearance at a concert in Paris in 1979. While the MD 441 as a broadcast microphone has largely been replaced by other models, it is still used today for recording musical instruments, particularly on
drums,
electric guitars and
amplifiers, as well as
woodwind instruments. File:Frank_Zappa_giving_the_finger_(cropped).jpg|Frank Zappa and MD 441 with windscreen (1974) File:Fleetwood_Mac_-_Stevie_Nicks_(1980)_(cropped).png|Stevie Nicks and MD 441 at a Fleetwood Mac concert in Zurich (1980) File:19921123_kenny_wheeler_ujre_braunschweig2.jpg|
Kenny Wheeler with MD 441 (1992) ==References==