Lines
Every genre on the map
23 lines in 3 families so far. Each line opens in the year its genre began, branches where new genres grew out of it, and runs until it closed or on into today. The map is curated line by line; more families arrive with the corpus.
Gospel family
R&B / Soul family
Rock family
- RockThe trunk line of the rock family. It opens in 1951 on "Rocket 88", flowing out of R&B/Soul, and runs thin until 1955, when Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard made it the dominant sound in American popular music. Everything from rockabilly to grunge branches off this line, and it still runs today, though it no longer carries the passenger numbers it did between the 1960s and the 1990s.
- RockabillyThe first branch off the Rock trunk, and arguably the platform it was born on. Rockabilly is what happened when young Southern country musicians played rhythm and blues with a slapped upright bass, a hollow-body electric guitar and tape echo: Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis at Sun Records in Memphis, Gene Vincent and Buddy Holly elsewhere. By 1960 its stars had died, gone to Hollywood, joined the army or gone pop, and the line closes.
- Surf rockA short, bright Southern Californian branch. Dick Dale's reverb-drenched instrumentals at the Rendezvous Ballroom in 1961 gave surf culture its own guitar sound; the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean added vocal harmonies and sold it to the rest of the world. The instrumental side peaked in 1963 with "Pipeline" and "Wipe Out". The British Invasion of 1964 ended the boom, and the line closes in 1966 as its biggest act, the Beach Boys, left the beach for the studio.
- Beat (Merseybeat)The British beat groups: Liverpool, Manchester, London and Birmingham bands who rebuilt 1950s rock and roll and American R&B with three guitars, drums and close vocal harmony. The Beatles' "Love Me Do" opens the line in October 1962; within 18 months Merseybeat had produced the British Invasion of the American charts. By 1967 the surviving groups had turned to psychedelia, pop or blues, and the line closes.
- Blues rockThe British blues boom and its American cousins. Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers were the academies; the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, the Animals and Them were the first graduates in 1963 and 1964; Cream, Fleetwood Mac and Ten Years After made the long guitar solo a genre in itself. In the United States the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and the Allman Brothers ran the same route. Hard rock branches from this line in 1968.
- Folk rockThe line where the folk revival plugged in. The Byrds' electric "Mr. Tambourine Man" in spring 1965 and Bob Dylan's own switch to a band that summer made a 12-string Rickenbacker and a Dylan lyric the sound of the year. Simon and Garfunkel, the Lovin' Spoonful and the Mamas and the Papas followed within months. Folk rock is still running: it fed the singer-songwriter era, country rock and, much later, the indie folk of the 2000s.
- Psychedelic rockRock's attempt to sound the way LSD felt. The Byrds' "Eight Miles High" and the Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows", both from 1966, opened the line with drones, tape loops and raga guitar; San Francisco (Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead), London (Pink Floyd) and Austin (the 13th Floor Elevators) built scenes around it. By 1971 its players had moved on to progressive rock, hard rock, country rock and the singer-songwriter era, and the line closes.
- Country rockWhere the folk rock generation went after psychedelia: back to Nashville and Bakersfield. Gram Parsons steered the Byrds into "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" in 1968, then founded the Flying Burrito Brothers; Bob Dylan recorded "Nashville Skyline"; Poco, the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt turned the sound into the Los Angeles mainstream of the 1970s. The line runs on through alt-country and Americana.
- Hard rockBlues rock with the blues turned down and the amplifiers turned up. The line opens in 1968 with Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild", the Jeff Beck Group's "Truth" and the formation of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, and ran at trunk weight through the 1970s: Zeppelin, the Who, AC/DC, Aerosmith, Kiss and Queen filled the stadiums that decade built. Heavy metal and Glam rock branch from it; Guns N' Roses and the Foo Fighters are later stations.
- Progressive rockThe English branch that took psychedelia's ambition and added classical form, jazz harmony and side-long suites. King Crimson's "In the Court of the Crimson King" (1969) opens the line; Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Pink Floyd made it the album-rock establishment of the early 1970s. Punk declared it the enemy in 1976, but the line never closed: it runs on through Rush, Marillion, Dream Theater and Radiohead's more ambitious records.
- Heavy metalThe line opens in February 1970 with Black Sabbath's first album: down-tuned riffs, doom lyrics and a rhythm section built for weight rather than swing. Judas Priest stripped out the blues, Motörhead added punk speed, and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Saxon) made it a global genre by 1980. Heavy metal ran at trunk weight through the 1980s and has never closed; Thrash and Glam metal are its branches on this map.
- Glam rockHard rock and 1950s rock and roll in platform boots and glitter. Marc Bolan's T. Rex opened the line in 1971 with "Hot Love" and "Get It On"; David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust gave it a theory in 1972; Slade, the Sweet, Roxy Music, Mott the Hoople and Gary Glitter ruled the British singles chart until 1975. It was a British phenomenon with a New York annex (the New York Dolls, Lou Reed's "Transformer"), and its influence on Punk, New wave and Glam metal outlasted the line itself.
- Pub rockA small London line with an outsized junction. In 1972 Brinsley Schwarz, Ducks Deluxe and Bees Make Honey went back to playing rock and roll, country and R&B in pubs, in reaction to progressive rock's arenas and glam's costumes. Dr. Feelgood from Canvey Island were the line's stars, Stiff Records its label, and its pubs, players and attitude fed directly into Punk in 1976, which succeeds it on the map.
- PunkRock stripped back to three chords, two minutes and an argument. The Ramones' first album in April 1976 and the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K." that November open the line on both sides of the Atlantic; the Clash, the Damned, Buzzcocks and the Jam followed within a year. Punk succeeds Pub rock on this map and spawns three lines of its own by 1980: New wave, Post-punk and Hardcore. It has never closed: Green Day, the Offspring and Blink-182 are 1990s stations.
- New wavePunk's pop-facing branch. The term was coined by record companies in 1977 for the CBGB and London bands who were too melodic, arty or clever to be sold as punk: Talking Heads, Blondie, Elvis Costello, the Police, the Cars. By 1980 it meant skinny ties, synthesisers and MTV, and the second British Invasion of 1982 to 1984 (Duran Duran, the Human League, Culture Club) was its peak. The line closes in 1985 as the term stopped meaning anything.
- Post-punkWhat happened when punk's musicians decided three chords were a starting point rather than a rule. John Lydon's Public Image Ltd opened the line in 1978 with dub bass and Keith Levene's guitar; Joy Division, Gang of Four, Wire, the Fall, Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Cure built the British version, Talking Heads and Pere Ubu the American. The map follows Simon Reynolds in closing the line in 1984, when its bands had become New Order, the Smiths and the pop charts.
- HardcoreAmerican punk, faster, shorter and angrier, made by teenagers in the suburbs of Los Angeles, Washington DC and Boston. Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, Dead Kennedys and Bad Brains opened the line in 1980; Minor Threat gave it straight edge, and Dischord, SST and Alternative Tentacles gave it a do-it-yourself label network that the whole American underground used for the next decade. It runs on at branch weight; its influence on Thrash, Grunge and emo is out of all proportion to its sales.
- Glam metalHeavy metal's pop decade, born on the Sunset Strip. Mötley Crüe's "Too Fast for Love" (1981) opens the line; Quiet Riot's "Metal Health" (1983) was the first heavy metal album to top the Billboard 200; Ratt, Poison, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard and Warrant sold tens of millions on MTV through the decade. The line closes in 1991, the year Nirvana's "Nevermind" replaced it at the top of the charts and at the record companies.
- Thrash metalHeavy metal at hardcore punk speed. The line opens in 1983 with Metallica's "Kill 'Em All" and Slayer's "Show No Mercy", both from the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles scenes that grew around Motörhead and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Megadeth, Anthrax, Exodus and Testament completed the "Big Four" and the second tier; 1986, the year of "Master of Puppets" and "Reign in Blood", is the line's summit. It runs on through the 1990s Bay Area revival and a global underground.
- Alternative rockThe independent-label rock that succeeded post-punk and, in 1991, took over the mainstream. The Smiths, R.E.M., Hüsker Dü and the Replacements opened the line in 1984 on college radio and the British indie charts; the Pixies, Sonic Youth, the Jesus and Mary Chain and the Stone Roses filled out the 1980s. Nirvana's "Nevermind" turned "alternative" into the biggest format in American rock for the 1990s. Grunge branches from here; Britpop, shoegaze and indie rock are still to be seeded.
- GrungeSeattle's answer to the question of what hardcore punks who loved Black Sabbath should play. Sub Pop's Green River and Mudhoney records opened the line in 1987 and 1988; Soundgarden, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains took it to the top of the charts in 1991 and 1992. The line closes in 1996, after Kurt Cobain's death, Soundgarden's last album and Pearl Jam's retreat from the mainstream, and its bands continue on Alternative rock and Hard rock.