Do Side Projects Go on a Music Map? It Depends Who the Map Is Of
Side projects on a discography music map are the decision I get asked about more than any other, and I have answered it four different ways across four different prints. The Last Shadow Puppets get two stations on the Arctic Monkeys map. The Traveling Wilburys get none on the George Harrison map. There is no house rule that covers all of it, and there probably should not be.
What follows is what I actually decided in each case, along with the research that drove the decision. If you want the broader editorial rules, I have written those up separately in what gets left off a discography map.
The Last Shadow Puppets Get Two Stations on the Arctic Monkeys Map
The Arctic Monkeys have seven studio albums, from the 2006 debut to The Car in 2022. My map draws nine stations because I folded in both Last Shadow Puppets records, The Age of the Understatement (2008) and Everything You've Come to Expect (2016).
I did it because leaving them out breaks the network. Miles Kane, Owen Pallett, Zach Dawes and the entire 2016 string section connect to Alex Turner only through those two records. Take the Puppets stations away and sixteen string and wind players vanish, along with the busiest station on the whole print, which carries 28 credited names.
It also produces the detail I like most on that map. Matt Helders sings backing vocals on three tracks of the 2016 Puppets record, which makes him the only Arctic Monkeys member other than Turner to appear on one. Nick O'Malley and Jamie Cook are absent from both, so their lines show two clean breaks that are side projects rather than gaps in the band.
John Lydon Gets Two Bands and a Solo Record on One Map
The Lydon map is the opposite problem. Here, the side project is not a side project at all; it is the second half of the career, and drawing either band on its own would have been dishonest.
So the print runs 17 stations: one Sex Pistols album, fifteen Public Image Ltd releases and one solo record, Psycho's Path, in 1997. Forty-four musicians are drawn as lines across them, and Lydon is the only one on all 17.
What the combined map shows is a handover you cannot see any other way. Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock stand at the 1977 station and then at Filthy Lucre Live in 1996 and nowhere else. Everything in between is a different band entirely, built and rebuilt around the same singer.
The Traveling Wilburys Are on Tom Petty's Map, Not George Harrison's
This is the case where I put the same side project on one map and refused it on another, which sounds inconsistent until you look at what each print is for.
The George Harrison map plots his twelve solo studio albums, from Wonderwall Music in 1968 to Brainwashed in 2002. Both Traveling Wilburys albums are absent because they are not Harrison solo records, and putting them in would have made the solo run harder to read, not easier.
They are stations on the Tom Petty map instead, where they sit within a 23-release run that also includes the Heartbreakers and both Mudcrutch albums. Harrison runs across them as a line. Everyone on those two stations is credited under their invented Wilbury surname, exactly as the sleeves print it, so Petty appears as Charlie T. Wilbury Jr and then Muddy, and Harrison as Nelson and then Spike.
The same two records, drawn twice, doing a different job each time. That is the argument for treating this on a case-by-case basis rather than writing a rule.
The Who's Solo Albums Are in the Research and Not in Print
The fourth answer is the one nobody sees, and it is the most common. The Who map runs 22 band releases from My Generation in 1965 to Who in 2019. Townshend, Entwistle and Daltrey all have substantial solo catalogues, and none of them are stations.
They are in my research sheet, tracked alongside the band records, so I can cross-reference a credit when a name turns up twice. They just do not reach the artwork.
That gap between the sheet and the print is where most of these decisions actually live. I research far more than I draw, and the editing is the design work.
The Test I Actually Apply
Reading these four back, the question I am really asking each time is whether the side project carries musicians who connect to nothing else. If it does, leaving it off deletes people from the story. If it does not, it is a second discography wearing the first one's name.
| Map | Side project | On the print | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arctic Monkeys | The Last Shadow Puppets | Yes, two stations | Miles Kane, Owen Pallett and the string section connect only through them |
| John Lydon | Public Image Ltd, and one solo album | Yes, 16 of the 17 stations | The second band is most of the career, not an aside |
| George Harrison | The Traveling Wilburys | No | Not solo records, and they are mapped in full on the Tom Petty print |
| The Who | Townshend, Entwistle and Daltrey solo albums | No | Tracked in the research sheet for cross-referencing only |
Sizes, Paper and Framing
All four of these prints are made the same way. Each is a Giclée on 230gsm premium acid-free matte fine art paper, in A2 (420 x 594mm) and A1 (594 x 841mm), plus 24 x 18 inch and 36 x 24 inch for buyers in the United States. Prices start at £42.
They come unframed or ready to hang in a black wood frame. On the maps that carry a side project, A1 is the size I would take, because the crossing points are exactly where the small type sits.
Related Music Maps
The two prints in this piece that carry their side projects are the Arctic Monkeys map and the John Lydon map. The two that do not are the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers map, which absorbs the Wilburys instead, and the Who map.
Questions About Side Projects on the Maps
Why does one map include a side project and another does not?
Because the test is whether the side project brings in musicians who connect nowhere else. The Last Shadow Puppets do, so they are stations. The Traveling Wilburys do not need to be on the Harrison map because they are already fully drawn on the Tom Petty one.
What is not on any of these maps?
Live albums and compilations, as a rule, as well as EPs and singles. The Lydon map is the exception, where three live records earn stations because musicians appear on them who appear nowhere else in that catalogue.
Does a side project station change how the lines are drawn?
No. The grammar is identical on every map I make, which is the point of a shared visual language. Lines are credited musicians, stations are releases, and one-off contributors get branch lines. What changes between maps is the shape the data makes, never the system.
Can you tell from the print which stations are the side project?
Yes. The station is labelled with the record and the year like any other, so on the Arctic Monkeys map, the 2008 and 2016 Puppets albums sit in the chronological run with everything else, and the line breaks around them do the explaining.
Were these decisions made by hand?
Every one of them. I work through the credits album by album myself and make the editorial call on each map. No AI was used to research or draw any of it.
The full range is in the Music Wall Art Prints collection. If you are buying for someone and are not sure which map they would pick, there is an art print gift card.
