There will be many more “oh, no” moments to come. A rash of mentions of a pop star or musician or icon in your social media feed won’t always necessarily imply a new album or tour on the way. Instead, it may signify that another bold-print musical name has reached the end of a well-lived life. And yeah, it would be too much like tempting fate to name names.

The death of Prince is a reminder that writing obituaries is now a key skill for anyone on the music journalism beat. Once upon a time, you could get by reviewing live shows and album releases. Now, given the fact that there’s a notable pop star death every other week, you need to be able to distil the life, times and works of a pop icon into 500 or 800 or 1,400 words.

All deaths are equally sad, but the difference in word counts comes down to how whoever is running the news desk at the time gauges the career of the recently deceased musician. In the case of David Bowie in January, it was all hands on deck, with every aspect of the star’s life covered in detail – because here was an artist whose work covered the waterfront and whose influence was widespread.

You didn’t get the same broad media spread with Lemmy from Motörhead or Phife Dawg from A Tribe Called Quest, two other recently deceased pop stars, because they were artists viewed to have more selective appeal. It also showed that we need more metal and hip-hop fans in commissioning editor positions in the media.

But Prince was just as influential as Bowie and you could see this in the cut of the coverage, though it didn’t quite have the same wide reach as the response to the latter’s death. Aside from that golden run of albums in the 1980s, Prince’s dealings with the music business, his peerless live performances and his idiosyncratic (if not downright mischievous) behaviour when it came to dealing with the media, were also wrapped up in the mix.

The deaths of Prince and Bowie won’t be the only occasion when so many people unite to mourn a cultural icon who was more than just a face on a screen or a voice on the airwaves. They’re just two of the acts who had the good timing to come to the fore after rock and pop became the lingua franca of the boomer and post-boomer generations worldwide. Media and popular culture combined to make it much easier for music acts to grow and develop huge audiences.

Those artists also hit the limelight at a time when the record business was booming. They reaped the financial benefits of that surge, an advantage the acts of today will never enjoy. It also became the case that their teenage fans went on to become the media gatekeepers of today, thus ensuring the huge coverage they receive in life – and death.

But really, the coverage is just the starting point. While you got a good sense of Prince the musician, pop star, enigma and genius from the clippings, it really served to send you back to the albums. There, you got the full shape of the man.

It’s always the music which provides the real insight on these occasions and Prince’s blanking of online streaming services meant you went either to your own collection or the radio for solace.

Best of all, the emotional punch and heft of those records and tunes will never fade or grow old.