Why Underground Music Maps?

How My Studio Album Band Maps Were Born

During the lockdown, my music maps were born. Back then, I found myself daydreaming about impossible journeys. Like many of us, I was stuck indoors, imagining places I couldn’t go. But for me, these weren’t just physical locations—I started thinking about abstract spaces, the kind of maps that don’t guide us through cities but through ideas, histories, and cultural legacies.

That’s when I began toying with the concept of using underground transit maps to navigate something entirely different: music. Bands have always fascinated me, particularly the way they evolve across their studio albums—how members come and go, how collaborations form and dissolve. I’d seen some of these artists up close in my years working in the live music industry, and I knew their histories weren’t linear. They were sprawling, interconnected, chaotic—exactly the kind of thing that a well-structured band map could make sense of.

From Touring Sound to Music Mapping

My journey into the music industry started from the ground up—literally. I began as a floor sweeper in a touring sound company’s warehouse, eventually working my way into show design for corporate clients and everything in between. Over time, I developed a knack for handling complex data: tracking crew logistics, equipment, and technical setups, as well as designing immersive spaces in 2D, 3D, and real life.

When the live music world ground to a halt in 2020, I needed a new creative outlet—something that would merge my love for music with my technical expertise in mapping out complex systems. That’s when I started designing my first studio album discography map, and I knew exactly which band to begin with: The Fall.

Mapping The Fall’s Chaotic Studio Albums

If ever a band embodied the idea of constant change, it was The Fall. Mark E. Smith’s legendary post-punk outfit had a rotating lineup that made Spinal Tap’s drummer situation look stable. Musicians cycled in and out, leaving behind a bewildering but brilliant discography spanning over 30 studio albums.

Trying to plot their history was like wrestling with a living organism—one that kept shifting every time I thought I had it pinned down. It took 15 versions before I finally found a structure that worked, mapping out each album as a station and each recurring band member as a transit line. The result was something that visually captured the tangled, unpredictable nature of The Fall’s career.

From The Fall to Bowie and The Who

Once I cracked the formula, I couldn’t stop. David Bowie’s studio album discography map was another journey entirely—his shape-shifting personas and evolving sound made for a fascinating musical transit system. The Who, with their rock operas and lineup changes, provided another challenge, as their music was as theatrical and conceptual as a map could ever be.

By late 2023, things took an unexpected turn—I started getting commissions. Fans and family members of The Levellers and Dire Straits wanted to see their favorite bands mapped out in the same detailed style. Suddenly, my lockdown project had taken on a life of its own, evolving like the musicians I was documenting.

Why Underground Music Maps?

At its core, this project is about storytelling. A band’s journey through their studio albums isn’t just a list of releases—it’s a narrative of collaborations, departures, reinventions, and milestones. By visualizing it in the style of a transit system, these band maps help fans navigate their favorite artists' careers in a completely new way.

Just like a real underground map, where stations represent moments in time and lines represent connections, these music maps show how musicians cross paths, split off, and reunite across different projects. Some go solo, others return, and guest artists appear as brief but important stops along the way.

The Future of Music Mapping

What started as a personal lockdown project became a wider exploration of studio album discographies and band histories. With more requests coming in and new bands to map out, the journey is far from over.

So, whether it’s punk legends, folk rock icons, or classic rock pioneers, there’s always another band map waiting to be drawn—another underground journey through music history.