Nope...I was a great fan of the Beatles but I never considered any single one of them to be individual "icons". Yes, it was horrific when John Lennon was killed but at the time, I didn't think that he was producing his best music at all. Elvis, Michael, Bowie and Prince...all icons, all trailblazers, all individualists who greatly effected, as individuals, the music industry.
After the Beatles broke up, John Lennon wrote
Give Peace a Chance (which is a lasting anti-war song) and
Imagine (which is a lasting peace song) and
And So This is Christmas (which is heard every December), among many others. But he was more than his music. He inspired other musicians to do charity concerts to raise funds after his UNICEF concert, for one thing, and he helped start the "legalize marijuana" movement.
I don't dispute that Prince has had an impact on music. I am just not so sure he has had the
social impact that Lennon and perhaps a few other artists have had, though - although Prince's song lyrics are the reason why we now have on CDs and albums the "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics" music labels.
I like what Cameron Strang of Warner Brothers Records said, because it applies to all of the individual musicians we have mentioned: "Prince's untimely passing is deeply shocking, reminding us that unique artists who chart their own course and move culture are precious few and irreplaceable."
