With the passing of Prince, the world has lost yet another music icon. For me, as a child and teenager of the 80's, Prince's music was omnipresent-- it was on the radio, playing on the TV via music videos, at school dances and teen night clubs, and blasting in my house on the stereo late at night while dancing with friends or cramming for exams. I still remember hanging the cool poster inside the Purple Rain album on my bedroom wall and thinking it was especially awesome that Prince had so many women in his band. This weekend my husband and I listened several times to Purple Rain (the 1984 album itself is a journey, and needs to be experienced from beginning to end as Prince intended) and reminisced, like so many others, about what the music meant to us as kids but also in the transition to adulthood. Prince represented a kind of freedom and danger that many other of the 1980's pop icons (like Madonna, Billy Idol, David Bowie, and bands like Depeche Mode, The Cure, and The Cult) also epitomized. Included in this week's links are a few notable selections celebrating Prince's memory (including that incredible performance at the 40th anniversary SNL after-party!). A true artist in every way, Prince, like so many other talented musicians, was taken from this world far too soon. RIP.