Bands with brothers hold the two longest unbroken lines anywhere in my catalogue, and I did not set out to find that. It fell out of the research sheets. Across around 70 discography maps I have now logged tens of thousands of individual credits, and when I went looking for the people who never miss a station, the two clearest answers were both pairs of siblings.
What follows is what the credits actually show, pulled from the same research sheets the artwork is drawn from. Some of it is what you would expect. The McCartney entry was not.
Why Bands With Brothers Produce the Straightest Lines I Draw
On my maps a line is a credited musician and a station is a record. A musician who plays on everything runs the full width of the sheet. A musician who turns up once is a short spur that touches one station and stops.
Most bands, even the ones with a reputation for stability, do not produce many full-width lines. Somebody misses a record through illness, or a side project, or a falling out. Siblings appear to miss fewer. I cannot tell you why from a spreadsheet, and I am not going to pretend the credits explain motive. What I can tell you is what the geometry looks like when you draw it.
Ron and Russell Mael Are on All 28 Sparks Stations. Nobody Else Passes Six.
The Sparks map runs to 28 stations: 26 studio albums from Halfnelson in 1971 to MAD! in 2025, plus a live record and the 2015 collaboration with Franz Ferdinand. Ron Mael and Russell Mael are credited on every single one.
That on its own is impressive. The thing that makes it remarkable is the gap behind them. My Sparks sheet carries 87 named musicians in total, and after the two brothers, the longest line on the whole map belongs to guitarist Dean Menta, at six stations. Everybody else sits at five or fewer.
So the picture on paper is two lines running the entire width of a 54-year career, and 85 other people arriving and leaving underneath them. I have not drawn another map with that shape. It is the starkest contrast between a band's core and its cast anywhere in the range, and it is why the Maels are the pair I reach for first whenever anyone asks about sibling bands.
Ray and Dave Davies Never Miss a Kinks Record Either
The Kinks map tells a version of the same story with a busier supporting cast. Twenty-four studio albums between 1964 and 1993, 45 credited musicians in total, and Ray and Dave Davies on all 24.
Two brothers, two full-width lines, and the well-documented fact that they spent a good deal of those 29 years not speaking to each other. The credits do not record an argument. They record attendance, and the attendance is perfect.
Set the two maps side by side and the difference is in the density rather than the brothers. Sparks is two constants and a revolving door. The Kinks is two constants inside a band that mostly stayed put.
The Gallaghers Are the Only Brothers I Have Had to Draw Three Times
Noel and Liam Gallagher are the exception that makes the pattern legible, because their careers refuse to sit on one sheet. There are three maps: the Oasis catalogue of seven studio albums from 1994 to 2008, the Liam Gallagher map at 13 records, and the Noel Gallagher map at eleven.
The Maels and the Davies brothers share a line on one sheet for a whole career. The Gallaghers share a sheet for seven albums and then need two more sheets to finish the story. When I wrote up the three Oasis maps I found one musician whose credits cross both brothers' solo catalogues, which is the only place the two lines touch after 2008.
Three Generations of McCartneys Sit on One Map
This is the one I did not expect, and it is not a sibling pair at all. Building the Paul McCartney map put four members of one family into the credits of a single catalogue.
Linda McCartney is the longest-serving collaborator on that map by a distance, credited on 13 albums from McCartney in 1970 to Flaming Pie in 1997. Her line outruns every session player and every producer on the sheet.
Then there are the children. Heather McCartney sings backing vocals on "Monkberry Moon Delight" on Ram in 1971, a single credit and a single station. James McCartney appears later and more than once, credited for spoken word on Press to Play and for electric guitar and percussion on later records.
Drawn out, that is one long line, one short spur and one intermittent line, all sharing a surname with the trunk route. Paul, Linda, Heather and James. I know of no other map in the range where a family occupies four separate lines.
The Father and Son Who Are on Two Different Maps and Never Meet
Zak Starkey drums on five stations of my Who map, from 2000 through to Who in 2019. His father, Ringo Starr, is on the McCartney map on four albums, and on the Beatles map throughout.
Father and son, both in my catalogue, both with substantial lines, and no station anywhere that carries them both. It is the sort of connection that only becomes visible once you have drawn enough maps to compare them, and it is the argument for treating the whole range as one dataset rather than 70 separate prints.
The Sibling Lines, Side by Side
| Siblings | Map | Stations together | What the line does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ron and Russell Mael | Sparks | 28 of 28 | Full width, 1971 to 2025, with no other line passing six stations |
| Ray and Dave Davies | The Kinks | 24 of 24 | Full width, 1964 to 1993, inside a cast of 45 |
| Noel and Liam Gallagher | Oasis, and one map each | 7 of 7 on Oasis | Together to 2008, then eleven and 13 records apart |
What a Long Sibling Line Actually Proves
Not much about the people, and I want to be straight about that. A credit records who played, not who got on. The Davies brothers are the proof: two lines that never break across 29 years, drawn from a band whose falling-outs are better documented than most.
What the lines do prove is continuity of the work. When two names sit on every station of a long map, the record you are holding in 2025 was made by the same two people who made the one in 1971. That is a rare thing in this catalogue, and it is the kind of fact a list of album titles cannot carry.
Sizes, Paper and Framing
Every map in the range is a Giclée on 230gsm premium fine art paper, textured matte, archival and acid-free. Sizes are A2 at 420 x 594 mm and A1 at 594 x 841 mm, plus 24 x 18 in and 36 x 24 in for buyers in the USA. Each one comes unframed, from £42, or ready to hang in a black wood frame.
For the two maps in this piece I would point you to A1 either way. On the Sparks map the whole point is reading two full-width lines against 85 short ones, and that comparison needs the room. Full detail is on the print specifications page.
Related Music Maps
The two maps this piece leans on hardest have write-ups of their own: the Sparks map at 28 stations and the Kinks map at 24 albums and 45 musicians. If the two-people-make-a-band idea is the part that interests you, I have also compared the Sparks and Steely Dan maps, which arrive at the same shape from opposite directions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which band has the longest sibling line on your maps?
Sparks. Ron and Russell Mael are credited on all 28 stations, 1971 to 2025. The Kinks are second, with Ray and Dave Davies on all 24 studio albums between 1964 and 1993.
Do the Gallagher brothers share a map?
On the Oasis map, yes, across seven studio albums from 1994 to 2008. After that they need one map each, which is why there are three Gallagher-related prints in the range rather than one.
Does a sibling get a line automatically?
No. A line is earned by a credit, and nothing else. Heather McCartney is on the McCartney map because she is credited singing on a track, not because of her surname. Family members who are not credited playing or singing do not appear at all.
What is not on these maps?
Live records, compilations and soundtracks are outside the editorial rule, with a small number of documented exceptions where a release sits on a map for a stated reason, as with the live album and the Franz Ferdinand collaboration on the Sparks sheet. Producers do not get a line unless the credits also show them playing something. Anything released after a map was drawn is not on it.
Where do the figures in this post come from?
My own research sheets, one per artist, built by hand from album credits, liner notes and session archives before any drawing starts. Where I could not verify a relationship or a credit independently, I have left it out of this piece rather than guess.
See the Maps
The Sparks map and the Kinks map are the two to see side by side, and the rest of the range is in the music map collection. If you are buying for someone and cannot work out which band they would want on the wall, there is an art print gift card that lets them pick it themselves.
