Interactive map of metal music history showing genre relationships and influential bands across subgenres.
Key Takeaways
Visualizes the full landscape of metal genres and the bands that shaped them in an explorable map format.
Originally built in Flash; later ported to HTML5, retaining the original visual style.
Built in roughly one to two weeks by two collaborators: one handling data, one handling code.
Map navigation is powered by OpenSeadragon, an open-source deep-zoom viewer.
Hacker News Comment Review
Commenters flagged missing subgenres including blackgaze (Alcest, some Deftones) and grey metal (Agalloch, Wolves in the Throne Room), suggesting genre coverage has gaps.
Search and gazetteer features were the top UX requests; discovery by band name is not currently supported.
A minor data error was spotted: a Machine Head song entry displays incorrect song metadata.
Notable Comments
@pjgalbraith: Creator confirmed the Flash-to-HTML5 port, one-to-two week build time, and that source code is posted publicly.
@keraf: Identified OpenSeadragon as the map rendering library via source inspection.
