My Rolling Stones discography tube map is one of the longest and most carefully redrawn maps in my catalogue. From the 1964 debut to Hackney Diamonds in 2023, every studio album sits on the map as a station, and every credited musician across six decades runs as a tube line through the records they appeared on. With Foreign Tongues confirmed for 10 July 2026, the map is about to be redrawn again - and I'm starting the research now.
TLDR: My Rolling Stones discography map traces every studio album from 1964 to Hackney Diamonds (2023), with the band's new record Foreign Tongues due 10 July 2026. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are the two continuous lines on every record. Charlie Watts features on Foreign Tongues too, through a 2021 Los Angeles session recorded shortly before his death in August 2021, so his line extends to the 2026 station and that session stands as his final appearance on a Stones studio album. The Foreign Tongues additions will be researched and added to the map once the sleeve credits are publicly verified.
What does the Rolling Stones discography map show?
The Rolling Stones discography map shows every studio album in chronological order, from The Rolling Stones in April 1964 through Hackney Diamonds in October 2023. Each album sits on the map as a station, with musicians running like tube lines connecting the records they played.
Not an algorithm - every connection on this map was made by hand, by an obsessive fan, working from album liner notes, verified session credit data and decades of music archives. The result is a six-decade view of one of the longest continuous runs in popular music.
The two continuous lines on the map represent Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, who appear on every studio album as the band's core songwriters and performers. Charlie Watts's drum line runs from the 1964 debut to Hackney Diamonds in 2023. Bill Wyman's bass line runs from 1964 to Steel Wheels in 1989, then ends - he retired from the band in 1993. Mick Taylor's guitar line runs from Let It Bleed (1969) to It's Only Rock 'n Roll (1974), a five-album arc that defined the band's blues-rock peak. Ronnie Wood's guitar line picks up from Black and Blue (1976) and continues to the present.
Around these main lines sit branch lines for the session players who shaped specific records. Ian Stewart, the founding member who became road manager and session pianist, appears on records across the catalogue. Nicky Hopkins's piano line runs from Beggars Banquet (1968) through the early 1970s peak. Billy Preston's keys appear across the Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. era. Bobby Keys on saxophone and Jim Price on horns shape the rhythm-and-blues weight of the early 1970s records. Each contributor appears as a line through the records they appeared in, with branch endings where their involvement ends.
How does the map handle Foreign Tongues (July 2026)?
Foreign Tongues arrives on 10 July 2026, the Stones' first studio album since Hackney Diamonds in 2023. From the patterns I've mapped across other long-running discographies, I expect the new map to add a new station at the end of the existing line, with existing musician lines extending forward where credited, and new branch lines added for any guest contributors.
The full picture only gets locked once the sleeve credits are verified, so the post-release research process always starts the same way: I work through the liner notes track by track, cross-check against verified session data, and only then commit the new connections to the map. The Foreign Tongues additions will be added once that research is complete.
Charlie Watts features on the album. A drum part from a 2021 Los Angeles session, recorded shortly before his death in August 2021, sits on Foreign Tongues as his final appearance on a Stones studio record, and Steve Jordan, the band's drummer since 2021, handles the rest of the kit. There has been speculation in the music press about a number of guest collaborators, but I'll be holding off on naming anyone on the map until the credits are officially confirmed. That's how the research process always works on this site.
If you want the current edition of the Rolling Stones Discography Tube Map Art Print, covering 1964 to Hackney Diamonds (2023), it's available now in A1 (594x841mm / 24x36in) and A2 (420x594mm / 18x24in) landscape, framed or unframed, as a Giclée print on 230gsm premium fine art paper, from £42.00.
What happens to Charlie Watts's line on the map?
Charlie Watts drummed on Rolling Stones studio albums from the 1964 debut right through to Foreign Tongues in 2026. On the map, his line runs unbroken from the debut to the new record. On Hackney Diamonds, he played two tracks ("Mess It Up" and "Live by the Sword"); on Foreign Tongues, he appears on a 2021 Los Angeles session, recorded in the studio before his death in August 2021, his last work to appear on a Stones album. Steve Jordan plays the remaining drum parts across both records and has handled live drums for the band since 2021.
When I redraw the map for Foreign Tongues, Watts's line extends one more stop, to the 2026 station, with a notation marking that final 2021 session. It is the most poignant connection on the whole map: a line that began at the 1964 debut and reaches the band's twenty-fifth studio album. Steve Jordan then carries the drum chair forward. The same pattern applies to the wider line-up: anyone who appeared on Hackney Diamonds and not on Foreign Tongues will see their line end at the 2023 station; new contributors get new branch lines starting at the 2026 station. That's the redraw process every time a new Stones album drops, and it's the part of the research I find most rewarding: working out which connections continue, which end, and where the new ones join in.
How is the discography map different from the Goats Head Soup album map?
The discography map shows every album in order, with each musician represented by a continuous line through the records they appear on. It's a network view of the whole catalogue. The Goats Head Soup album map takes a different approach: it zooms in on a single 1973 album and shows the role each musician played on each individual track.
Mick Taylor's guitar lines, Billy Preston's keys on "Heartbreaker", Nicky Hopkins's piano on "Angie", Jim Price's horns, Bobby Keys's tenor sax: the album-level map renders this track-by-track detail in a way the discography map cannot. The Goats Head Soup map is the only album-level map in my catalogue. Everything else, including the Rolling Stones discography map, works at the catalogue scale. The two prints are designed as companion pieces: one zoomed out over six decades, the other zoomed in on a single record.
When does the Foreign Tongues edition of the Rolling Stones discography map go live?
The current edition of the Rolling Stones discography map covers 1964 to Hackney Diamonds (2023). Once Foreign Tongues is released on 10 July 2026 and the sleeve credits are publicly available, I'll work through the verified musician list, identify the existing tube lines that extend forward into the new album, add new branch lines for guest contributors, and update the map artwork. The new edition will replace the current one on the product page, and the change history will be documented in an update to this post.
If you order before the update goes live, you'll receive the current six-decade edition, which is itself the most comprehensive Stones map in the catalogue. The Foreign Tongues edition will follow as part of the usual research process, in the same way every previous edition of this map has come together: from the sleeve, by hand, by an obsessive fan.
The Rolling Stones discography map is part of my discography maps series at mikebellmaps.com, designed for fans who already know the records well and want to see the full musician network rendered as a London Underground-style tube map. From Brian Jones in 1964 to whoever joins the line on Foreign Tongues in 2026, the Stones have employed and collaborated with hundreds of musicians across six decades. This map is the visual record of that.
Related Discography Maps
If you're collecting maps of long-running bands, the Cure discography map traces another four-decade career, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers discography map covers a similarly dense session-musician network. For another act with multiple bandmate-loss redraws across a long career, the Paul McCartney discography map is the natural companion. Browse all my 1960s bands discography map collection for related artists from the same era.
