Do Side Projects Go on a Music Map? Two Prints Say Yes, Two Say No
Whether side projects go on a music map depends on one test, and I have answered it four ways. Two of my discography music maps give the side project its own stations and two leave it off: the Last Shadow Puppets take two of nine on the Arctic Monkeys print, the Traveling Wilburys none of twelve on George Harrison's.
- Arctic Monkeys: the Last Shadow Puppets are stations, 2 of 9
- John Lydon: Public Image Ltd and one solo record are stations, 15 of 17
- George Harrison: the Traveling Wilburys are left off, and mapped on the Tom Petty print instead
- The Who: the three solo catalogues stay in the research sheet and never reach the artwork
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 2016 string section connect to Alex Turner only through those two records. Take the Puppets stations away and seventeen string and wind players vanish, along with the busiest station on the whole print.
My research sheet counts the names on each album, and the 2016 Puppets record carries 28 against a run of 11, 10, 9, 13, 13, 13, 19 and 14 on the rest. It is nearly twice the width of any Arctic Monkeys album, and it exists on the print only because I decided a side project counted.
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: two Sex Pistols releases, fourteen 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 at all 17 stations.
This is one of the maps where releases rather than studio albums is the honest word. Three of the 17 are live records, Paris au Printemps (1980), Live in Tokyo (1983) and Filthy Lucre Live (1996), and they are stations because musicians appear on them who appear nowhere else in the catalogue.
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, which also carries the Heartbreakers records 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 of nine stations | Miles Kane, Owen Pallett and seventeen string and wind players connect only through them |
| John Lydon | Public Image Ltd, and one solo album | Yes, 15 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, as a Giclée on 230gsm premium acid-free matte fine art paper. A3 at 420 x 297 mm, A2 at 594 x 420 mm and A1 at 841 x 594 mm each come unframed or in a black wood frame.
Three inch formats are sold alongside the A sizes rather than as conversions of them: 16 x 12 in, 24 x 18 in and 36 x 24 in. 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 discography art print and the John Lydon discography art print. The two that do not are the Tom Petty discography art print, which absorbs the Wilburys instead, and the Who discography art print.
Questions About Side Projects on the Maps
Do side projects go on a music map?
Sometimes, and the test is whether the side project brings in musicians who connect nowhere else. The Last Shadow Puppets do, so they are two of the nine stations on the Arctic Monkeys map. The Traveling Wilburys do not need to be on the Harrison map because they are already fully drawn on the Tom Petty one.
Why does one map include a side project and another does not?
Because each map is drawn for one artist, and the question is whether the side project is part of that artist's network or a separate one. Public Image Ltd is most of Lydon's career, so it is on his map. The Wilburys are a shared band, so they sit on the print where they add the most.
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.
