Podcast of the Week: Remembering Prince

In the wake of the death of Prince this past Thursday, two of my pop culture podcasts released separate 15-minute reflections on the legacy of the artist. At All Songs Considered, Bob Boilen, Robin Hilton and Ann Powers conversed about the impact Prince had in their personal lives, especially during critical turning points and coming-of-ages. At Pop Culture Happy Hour, Linda Holmes and Stephen Thompson painted the portrait of the enigmatic figure that Prince embodied and how he shook convention in multiple aspects of culture.

It is this latter podcast especially and this topic of non-conformity in particular that resonated with me because I see that with the passing of other great innovative pop musicians in recent years, like David Bowie and Michael Jackson, the mainstream culture is quick to aggrandize their influence and attribute to their stature social implications that could legitimately be out of their reach. It may just be that the boilerplate eulogy lends itself to canonization, thus making media personalities patronages of the societal progress, but time will tell what super-man may or may not arise from the image of the man that was Prince.

Listen to "Remembering Prince: The Utopian"

Visit All Songs Considered

Listen to "Remembering Prince"

Visit Pop Culture Happy Hour

℣ Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine.
℟ Et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Fidelium animae, per misericordiam Dei, requiescant in pace.
Amen.