The Right Present for 1970s Music Fans: Seven Maps and the Lyricon That Links Two of Them

If you want the right present for 1970s music fans and you have run out of box sets, this is the collection I would send you to. My 1970s Music Tube Maps collection holds seven discography maps, each plotting every studio album and every credited musician as a connected tube line. Seven is a small enough number that you can actually choose properly, which is what this guide is for.

Here is the thing that started me writing it. Tom Scott took a Lyricon, a rare electronic wind instrument almost nobody was using, into two different sessions in 1980, and both of those records are on maps in this collection.

He plays it on tracks three and six of Steely Dan's Gaucho. He plays it on "Do the Dark" on Blondie's Autoamerican. Two bands with nothing in common, same year, same man, same odd instrument.

So this is not a list of products. It is what I would tell you on the phone if you said the person you are buying for loves seventies music and you need to narrow it down to one print.

The Session Men Who Quietly Work on More Than One of These Maps

Tom Scott is not the only one. Once I had spotted the Lyricon I went back through the credit sheets looking for names that appear on two different maps in this single collection.

Gordon Gottlieb plays percussion on Debbie Harry's Rockbird in 1986, which puts him on the Blondie map. He then plays percussion on both Two Against Nature and Everything Must Go, which puts him on the Steely Dan map fourteen years later.

Geoff Dugmore drums on tracks ten and twelve of Brian May's Back to the Light in 1992, which puts him on the Queen map. He also drums on Def, Dumb and Blonde in 1989 and Debravation in 1993, which puts him on the Blondie map.

Ellie Greenwich, the Brill Building songwriter, sings backing vocals on the 1976 Blondie debut and again on Eat to the Beat. My ELO sheet also has her down for uncredited vocals on Face the Music in 1975, though I have that one flagged as needing a firmer source, so treat it as a lead rather than a fact.

Ray Brown is the other one I have not closed. A Ray Brown plays string bass on "Razor Boy" for Steely Dan and a Ray Brown plays bass on "Faces" for Blondie, and I have not yet proved to my own satisfaction that they are the same man.

The Steely Dan Map: Thirteen Musicians on the First Album, Forty-One on Gaucho

The Steely Dan map is the one where the counting tells the story. Can't Buy a Thrill in 1972 has thirteen credited musicians. Then it goes nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-four, thirty-seven on Aja, and forty-one on Gaucho.

You can see that happen on the print without reading a single number. The left-hand end of the map is thin and the right-hand end is a thicket.

Denny Dias is the counterweight. He is on the guitar from the debut right through to Aja, six albums deep, and then he is simply not there any more.

Buy this one for the fan who talks about players rather than songs. Wayne Shorter on Aja, Mark Knopfler on track five of Gaucho, Michael McDonald singing backing vocals on three consecutive records. My Steely Dan gift guide goes further into the session cast.

The Queen Map: Strange Frontier Is a Roger Taylor Album With All Three of the Others on It

The Queen map includes the solo records, and that is where it gets interesting. Roger Taylor released Strange Frontier in 1984, and the credits put Freddie Mercury on backing vocals for "Killing Time", Brian May on rhythm guitar for "Man on Fire", and John Deacon on bass for "It's an Illusion".

All four of them on a record that is not a Queen record. On the print, three lines briefly reach across into a station that belongs to somebody else.

The other Queen detail I like is Hot Space in 1982, where David Bowie is credited with vocals and synthesizer on track eleven. One track, one station, and the biggest guest name on the whole map.

This is the map for the fan who thinks they know the discography. There is more of it in my Queen gift guide.

The Blondie Map: Robert Fripp on Parallel Lines, the Chic Rhythm Section on KooKoo

The Blondie map carries the Debbie Harry solo albums alongside the band records, and the two halves look completely different.

Robert Fripp of King Crimson plays guitar on track four of Parallel Lines in 1978, then turns up again on the "Heroes" live track attached to Eat to the Beat. Not many people can name the guitarist on a Parallel Lines track without checking.

Then KooKoo in 1981 arrives and the whole of Chic walks in. Nile Rodgers on guitar and vocals for "Backfired", Bernard Edwards on bass, Tony Thompson on drums. There is also a credit on that album for a dog bark, which I have left in because it is real.

Buy this for the fan who follows Debbie Harry rather than just Blondie. My Blondie and Debbie Harry gift guide covers the solo years properly.

The ELO Map: Ted Blight Played Cello, and May Never Have Existed

My favourite credit anywhere in this collection is on the ELO map. The UK pressing of On the Third Day in 1973 credits a cellist called Ted Blight, and the man is widely held to be a figment of Jeff Lynne's imagination.

I plot what the credits say, so Ted Blight has a station. I just would not go looking for him.

The same map has Marc Bolan playing guitar on ELO 2 and again on On the Third Day, Bev Bevan credited with a fire extinguisher on "Mr. Blue Sky", and Richard Tandy running from ELO 2 in 1973 to a piano solo on "One More Time" in 2019. That is a forty-six year line on one print.

Good present for someone who likes an argument about who counts as a member. My ELO gift guide takes on the two Beatles who appear on Zoom.

The Guests You Would Not Expect to Find on a 1970s Map

All of these came off the credit sheets while I was drawing the lines. Every one is a name most people would never guess was on that record.

If you are buying for two people in the same house, that table is a decent argument for a pair of prints rather than one.

Ramones, Joy Division and New Order: The Three Maps I Have Not Mentioned Yet

The Ramones map is the opposite of the Steely Dan one. Fourteen albums, three drummers, and two lines that never break once across the whole print. Buy it for the fan who values the discipline rather than the guest list, and read the Ramones gift guide first.

Then there are two Manchester prints that both start in 1979 with Unknown Pleasures. The Joy Division and New Order map is the wide one, taking in twenty-one albums and seven connected bands on a single sheet.

The New Order map is the narrow one, ten albums, two unbroken lines and a bass line that stops short of the end. Pick the wide one for the fan who follows the whole Factory story, the narrow one for the fan who only really means New Order. The Joy Division and New Order guide and the New Order guide split the difference between them.

Why Roy Thomas Baker Gets a Line for Castanets

People ask why some producers appear on my maps and most do not. The rule is that a producer only earns a musician line if the credits also show them playing something.

Roy Thomas Baker produced Queen II, and he is on the map because the sleeve also has him down for castanets on track seven and stylophone on track eleven. Reinhold Mack produced Hot Space and played synth bass on track five, so he is on it too.

Mike Chapman produced Eat to the Beat, and he qualifies because he sang background vocals on "Die Young, Stay Pretty" and "Victor". Everybody who only sat behind the glass stays off. It keeps every line on the print traceable to an actual sound.

The Right Present for 1970s Music Fans Depends on How Close They Will Stand

Every map comes in A2 (420 x 594mm) and A1 (594 x 841mm), from £42, with an optional black wood frame. All are printed as Giclée art prints.

A2 works on a landing, a hallway or above a desk, and it suits the fan who will enjoy recognising album titles from across the room. A1 is for the person who will stand a foot away and read the guest credits, because at that size the small names are legible without leaning in.

The Steely Dan and Blondie maps in particular reward A1, because forty-one musicians on Gaucho and a full Chic rhythm section on KooKoo are the whole point. The Ramones map reads well at A2, because its story is the two lines you can see from the doorway.

For a milestone birthday or a retirement I would go A1 and framed. If they move house a lot, A2 unframed and let them sort out the frame.

Four Things People Ask Me Before They Buy One of These

Is a 1970s collection just seventies albums? No. Each map follows the whole discography wherever it goes, which is why the ELO map reaches 2019 and the Blondie map reaches 2017. The seventies is where these careers start, not where they stop.

Which one is safest if I do not know what they own already? The Steely Dan map. Very little Steely Dan merchandise exists, and the thirteen-to-forty-one musician count gives you something to say as they open it.

Do the solo albums really belong on the band maps? On the Queen and Blondie maps, yes, and Strange Frontier is why. Leave the solo records off and you lose the moment where the band turns up on somebody else's album.

What if I genuinely cannot choose? There is a gift card in this collection, and I would rather they picked their own map than got the wrong one politely.

Where to Start

Browse the full 1970s Music Tube Maps collection, or widen it out across every era in the Music Wall Art Prints collection.

If you are still stuck between two of them, tell me who it is for and what they had on in the car last week. The spreadsheets are open most days anyway.