Why Mapping Every Album, Rather Than the Highlights, Decides the Entire Layout
Every studio album goes on the map. That single rule, set before I draw a line, is the thing that governs everything else: how wide the sheet has to be, how many musicians I have to fit, and which parts of a career end up looking crowded or bare.
I am Mike Bell, and I research and design the discography tube maps at mikebellmaps.com. On every one of them, each credited musician runs as their own named line, calling at each studio album they played on, with one-off contributors branching off as short spurs.
At a glance: Mike Bell's discography tube maps at mikebellmaps.com plot every studio album an artist released as a station, with every credited musician drawn as a line. The Fall map carries 31 studio albums between 1979 and 2017 and 56 credited musicians, with Mark E Smith the only line calling at all 31. The Steely Dan map covers just 9 studio albums between 1972 and 2003 but 127 credited musicians, with 41 of them on Gaucho alone.
What Does "Every Studio Album" Actually Mean on One of My Maps?
It means the studio albums are the stations, and none of them are dropped for being unfashionable, badly reviewed or commercially quiet. A greatest hits selection would be a poster. A complete run is a map.
The stations sit in chronological order, and the lines are people. So when I say The Fall map runs from Live at the Witch Trials in 1979 to New Facts Emerge in 2017, I am describing 31 fixed points that every musician line has to be routed through or around.
Live albums, compilations and reissues stay off. That boundary matters, because the moment you let a live record in you have to let all of them in, and the structure that makes the map readable collapses under its own completeness.
Why Does Completeness Change the Design and Not Just the Content?
Because completeness sets the shape of the problem before I have any say in it. A long catalogue with a small band and a short catalogue with a vast cast are two entirely different drawing jobs.
Deep Purple gave me 23 studio albums between Shades of Deep Purple in 1968 and =1 in 2024, and only 37 credited musicians across the whole span. The first ten records, up to Come Taste the Band in 1975, are five musicians each, which produces long parallel lines and very few crossings.
Steely Dan is the opposite instrument. Nine studio albums, from Can't Buy a Thrill in 1972 to Everything Must Go in 2003, and 127 credited musicians, because Walter Becker and Donald Fagen hired the session floor of Los Angeles and New York rather than keeping a band.
| Map | Studio albums | Years | Credited musicians | Densest station |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Fall | 31 | 1979 to 2017 | 56 | Extricate, 1990, with 11 |
| Steely Dan | 9 | 1972 to 2003 | 127 | Gaucho, 1980, with 41 |
| Deep Purple | 23 | 1968 to 2024 | 37 | Turning to Crime, 2021, with 13 |
| Nick Cave | 25 | 1979 to 2024 | 108 | Murder Ballads, 1996, with 24 |
Those four sets of numbers are the design brief. Nothing about my taste in records enters the room until they are settled.
What Happens When a Catalogue Refuses to Behave?
Most of them do refuse, which is the interesting part. Deep Purple has 23 stations but only one line that calls at all of them, and it belongs to Ian Paice on drums.
Roger Glover reaches 17, Jon Lord and Ian Gillan 16 each, Ritchie Blackmore 13, Steve Morse 8 and Don Airey 7. Drawn out in full, those staggered line lengths are the band's history of departures and returns, sitting there as pure geometry.
The Nick Cave discography map refuses in a different way, because the catalogue crosses four band names. Door, Door in 1979 arrives as The Boys Next Door, then The Birthday Party, then the Bad Seeds from From Her to Eternity in 1984, with the two Grinderman records folded in.
Nick Cave is the only line calling at all 25 stations. Mick Harvey reaches 18, Thomas Wydler 16, Warren Ellis and Martyn P. Casey 14 each, Jim Sclavunos and Blixa Bargeld 12 each, and Conway Savage 9.
The Fall Discography Tube Map
31 studio albums, 56 credited musicians, one line running the whole length of it.
Explore This Art PrintWhat the Research Revealed Once I Stopped Choosing Albums
When I was researching The Fall map, the completeness rule produced a result I could not have designed on instinct. Mark E Smith calls at all 31 stations, Steve Hanley at 18 and Craig Scanlon at 17, so the middle of the map has a spine that the later years simply do not have.
Brix Smith reaches 9, Karl Burns 10 and Simon Wolstencroft 11, while Eleana Poulou holds 8 across the final decade. Extricate in 1990 is the densest station on that map with 11 credited musicians, against 5 on the 1979 debut.
The other 23 names on The Fall map appear exactly once, John Peel among them, and each one becomes a branch line. Those spurs are the part people lean in to read, and they only exist because nothing was edited out for tidiness.
The Steely Dan map takes that to its limit, with 75 of its 127 musicians credited on a single record. Victor Feldman on percussion is the most persistent hired hand at 7 albums, ahead of Denny Dias at 6 and Chuck Rainey and Dean Parks at 5 each.
My rule on the lines is strict, and completeness is what tests it. Producers and engineers only get a line when they are credited for musical input, which is why Roger Nichols appears on the Steely Dan map for playing gong on East St. Louis Toodle-Oo, and Bob Ezrin appears on the Deep Purple map for backing vocals and percussion across five records.
Where Does the Every Studio Album Rule Deliberately Break?
It breaks in exactly one place, and only because a different question is being asked. The Goats Head Soup map is the one design where I go inside a single record and show what each musician played, track by track.
That is a different instrument entirely, and it is the only album map in the catalogue that works that way. Everything else in the single album collection and across the discography maps keeps the same logic: complete run, musicians as lines, albums as stations.
I have written more about the rhythm of those release gaps in how often bands record albums, which comes out of the same research sheets.
How Does This Rule Sit Across the Rest of the Catalogue?
It scales, which is the only reason the catalogue holds together. The David Bowie map applies it across 27 studio albums, and that print is held in the permanent collection at the V and A David Bowie Centre in London.
The Bruce Springsteen map is held at the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music at Monmouth University in New Jersey. Both were built the same way as The Fall map: research sheet first, complete album run second, lines last.
You can see the effect of the rule most clearly by scene. The Manchester end of the punk and post-punk collection is full of long catalogues with revolving casts, while the prog rock collection tends towards stable line-ups and cleaner parallel routes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does every studio album really appear on the map?
Yes. Every studio album an artist released within the mapped span appears as a station, in chronological order, with no albums dropped on grounds of taste or sales. The Fall map carries all 31 between 1979 and 2017.
Are live albums and compilations included?
No. Studio albums only, which keeps the station count honest and the map readable. Reissues and compilations are excluded for the same reason.
Which map has the most credited musicians on one album?
Steely Dan's Gaucho, released in 1980, with 41 credited musicians on that single station. Aja in 1977 is close behind at 37, and Murder Ballads in 1996 is the densest station on the Nick Cave map at 24.
Who has the longest line in the catalogue?
Among these four maps it is Mark E Smith, present on all 31 studio albums on The Fall map. Ian Paice matches the pattern on Deep Purple with all 23, and Nick Cave calls at all 25 stations on his own map.
Do producers get a line?
Only when they are credited for musical input on the record. Bob Ezrin appears on the Deep Purple map for backing vocals and percussion, not for production, and the same test is applied on every map.
The Print Itself
Every map is researched by hand from liner notes, session credits and release records, checked at the sheet before anything is drawn, so the credits are right. Not an algorithm - every connection on this map was made by hand, by an obsessive fan.
The Fall discography map is available as a Giclée print in A2 and A1, unframed or framed, on 230gsm premium fine art paper, textured matte, archival acid-free. From £42.00.
A2 measures 594 x 420 mm, which is 24 x 18 in, and A1 measures 841 x 594 mm, which is 36 x 24 in, both landscape. The full range sits in the music wall art collection, with everything I have made in the full print catalogue.
Related Music Maps
Steely Dan music map for the session player extreme, Deep Purple music map for 23 albums of line-up turnover, and the Nick Cave music map for a catalogue that crosses four band names. Recently revised prints are gathered in the updated maps collection.
