If you are looking for the perfect present for punk and post-punk fans, the difficult part is rarely finding something with the right band on it. It is about deciding which band and which map. There are ten maps in my punk and post-punk discography collection, and they suit very different people.
I am Mike, and I build these maps one credit at a time. Every studio album becomes a station, and every musician credited on it becomes a line running between the albums they played on. Nothing is decorative, so what you end up looking at is an argument about who actually made the records.
This guide is the "which one do I pick" post. Below, I have taken four of the maps that sell the most and pulled out the thing in my research that I would point at first if you were standing next to me in the studio.
The Fall: Steve Hanley and Craig Scanlon Each Miss Exactly One Album
The Fall map plots 31 studio albums from 1979 to 2017 and 56 credited musicians. Mark E Smith is the only name on all 31, which is the obvious finding and not the interesting one.
The interesting thing is that Steve Hanley and Craig Scanlon both arrived on Dragnet in 1979 and both left after The Light User Syndrome in 1996. Each racks up 16 albums in that span. Each is missing from exactly one record, and it is a different record: my sheet leaves Hanley off Middle Class Revolt in 1994, and Scanlon off Cerebral Caustic in 1995.
Two parallel lines running seventeen years with one gap each, in different places. You cannot see that in a discography list, but you can see it instantly on the map.
Martin Bramah gives the other shape a reason to buy it. He plays on the 1979 debut, disappears for eleven years, comes back for Extricate in 1990 and Shift-Work in 1991, then returns once more on Levitate in 1997. Extricate also has the largest credited line-up on the whole map, with eleven musicians, so the album where he reappears is also the busiest station on the print.
If the person you are buying for owns the records and has opinions about the line-ups, this is the map. It is the one that rewards standing in front of it for twenty minutes. There is more on it in my post on The Fall map, and the print itself is here: The Fall discography map.
John Lydon: Ginger Baker, Steve Vai and Ryuichi Sakamoto on the Same Record
The John Lydon map covers 17 releases and does something none of the others do. It runs the Sex Pistols album, the whole of Public Image Ltd, and his 1997 solo record onto one sheet, so you can watch one man's collaborators change completely around him.
The station that stopped people was Album in 1986. Ginger Baker plays drums on it. So do Tony Williams, Steve Vai on guitar, Ryuichi Sakamoto on Fairlight, Shankar on electric violin and Malachi Favors on acoustic bass. It is the least punk cast list imaginable, gathered around the man who sang Anarchy in the UK nine years earlier.
Then there are the long absences. Bruce Smith drums on Happy? in 1987 and 9 in 1989, vanishes, and does not reappear until This is PiL in 2012, then stays through to End of World in 2023. Lu Edmonds does the same with an even longer gap, playing on Happy? in 1987 and not appearing again until 2012.
One more for the Pistols side of the family: Sid Vicious is credited on bass on two tracks only, Bodies and God Save the Queen. Steve Jones carries the rest. That single short line is often the first thing a visitor spots.
Buy this one for the fan who argues that PiL matters more than the Pistols. Background reading is in my John Lydon map post, and the print is here: John Lydon discography map.
The Stranglers: Dave Greenfield Is on All Twenty, Including the One Released After He Died
The Stranglers' map runs from Rattus Norvegicus (1977) to Dark Matters (2021). Dave Greenfield is credited on every single one of the twenty releases on it, which makes him the only unbroken line on the sheet.
That matters more than a statistic usually does. Greenfield died in May 2020, and Dark Matters came out in 2021, so his line reaches the final station because the keyboards were already recorded. Jet Black is on nineteen of the twenty and is absent only from that last one, with Jim Macaulay taking the drums.
Hugh Cornwell's line stops dead after 10 in 1990. Baz Warne's starts at the Norfolk Coast in 2004 and runs to the end. Fourteen years of the band's life sit between those two facts, and the map makes the handover legible in about three seconds.
The guest credits on this one are the best in the collection. Nigel Kennedy plays violin on track three of Written in Red in 1997. Jon Sevink of the Levellers takes the violin solo on track ten of Norfolk Coast in 2004. Back in 1978, Black and White had the jazz singer George Melly on Old Codger and Lora Logic of X-Ray Spex on saxophone on Hey.
Here is the print: The Stranglers' discography map.
Blondie: Robert Fripp in 1978, Johnny Marr in 2017
The Blondie map is the only one here that folds a solo career into the band's own story. It plots sixteen releases from the 1976 debut to Pollinator in 2017, mixing the Blondie albums with Debbie Harry's solo records, and Harry and Chris Stein are the only two names present on all sixteen.
Clem Burke is not, which surprises people. He drums on the first five, sits out KooKoo in 1981, returns for The Hunter in 1982, then misses four more before coming back on No Exit in 1999.
KooKoo is the reason for the first of those gaps. Debbie Harry made it with Nile Rodgers on guitar, Bernard Edwards on bass, and Tony Thompson on drums, which is Chic playing an entire album under her name.
The two guest credits I like most sit thirty-nine years apart. Robert Fripp plays guitar on track four of Parallel Lines in 1978. Johnny Marr plays guitar on Pollinator in 2017, alongside Joan Jett on backing vocals and Nick Valensi of The Strokes. Coolio turns up in between, on track four of No Exit in 1999.
This is the map for the fan whose taste goes beyond punk. My Blondie and Debbie Harry post goes deeper, and the print is here: Blondie discography map.
Choosing the Perfect Present for Punk and Post-Punk Fans, Map by Map
Five of the ten maps cover most of the requests I get. This is how I would match them to a person.
| Map | The detail I would point at first | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|
| The Fall | Hanley and Scanlon run 16 albums each and miss one apiece, on different records | The completist who already owns the box sets. Go A1. |
| John Lydon (Sex Pistols and PiL) | Ginger Baker, Steve Vai and Ryuichi Sakamoto all credited on Album, 1986 | The fan who rates PiL above the Pistols and likes to prove it |
| The Stranglers | Dave Greenfield credited on all twenty releases, Dark Matters included | A milestone birthday for someone who saw them in 1977 |
| Blondie and Debbie Harry | Chic play KooKoo in 1981, Johnny Marr plays Pollinator in 2017 | The pop-literate fan, and the easiest of these to live with in a hallway |
| Joy Division and New Order | One continuous run of stations carrying one band into the next | The Manchester fan, or anyone buying their first map |
The Joy Division and New Order map is the one I would hand a beginner, and there is a separate post on it here and the print is here.
Why Simon Rogers Loses His Line on One Fall Album
I have one rule that decides who gets drawn and who does not, and I call it the 101 rule. A producer only earns a line if they are also credited playing something.
Simon Rogers is the clean example. He plays on This Nation's Saving Grace in 1985, Bend Sinister in 1986 and The Frenz Experiment in 1988, so he has a line across those three. He comes back to produce The Infotainment Scan in 1993 and gets nothing, because production alone is not playing.
Compare Bill Laswell on PiL's Album. He produced it and played bass on six tracks, so he is on the map. The rule is not a judgement on anyone's contribution, it just keeps the maps honest about what they are showing.
Sizes, Framing and What Arrives
Every map in this collection comes in A2 at 420 x 594mm and A1 at 594 x 841mm, printed as a Giclée on heavyweight paper, from £42.
Pick A2 for a hallway, a landing or a small home office where someone will pass it daily. Pick A1 for the maps with the most names on them, which in this collection means The Fall and The Stranglers, because the guest credits are half the pleasure and they need room to be read.
A black wood frame is available if you would rather it arrived finished. If you are buying it as a present that gets unwrapped, framed A1 is the one that makes the room go quiet.
Questions I Get About This Collection
Is there a Sex Pistols map on its own? No. Never Mind the Bollocks sits as one station on the John Lydon map, alongside the PiL catalogue, which I think tells a better story than the single album would on its own.
The Echo and the Bunnymen map is marked as being reissued. Should I wait? A new issue is due on 18 September 2026 to take in the new album, once the credited musicians are confirmed. If you are buying for a date after that, wait for it.
Do you include session players or only band members? Everyone credited on the sleeve who played something, which is why Nigel Kennedy and Lora Logic both appear on the Stranglers map and why some albums carry twice as many lines as others.
What if they like four of these bands equally? Two A2 prints hung as a pair look better than one A1 on its own, and they cost about the same. The Fall next to The Stranglers is the pairing I have sent out most.
Where do the credits come from? Sleeve credits and published discographies, checked album by album into a spreadsheet before I draw anything. Punk-era sleeves are patchy, so the 1977 to 1981 stations take the most careful burrowing of the lot.
Start Here
The whole collection is on one page: punk and post-punk discography art prints. If the person you are buying for has wandered outside the genre, the wider music wall art prints collection has seventy maps in it.
And if you already know the band but not the size, buy A1. Nobody has ever told me they wished the map were smaller.
