Metal Archives Graphs

Explore global metal music production through interactive data visualizations

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Note: This site is not affiliated with the Metal Archives · Data visualization by oneyoudontknow  ·  oneyoudontknow@posteo.net

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v2.3

Country Profile

Pick any country and get its whole metal scene at a glance — total output, top genres, peak years, first release, per-capita and regional ranking, and review activity, all on one page.

Search 160+ countries →
Explore the Data
v2.2

Review Analysis

135,551 Metal Archives reviews from 2002 onwards — canon formation, rating distributions and reviewer behaviour, plus how review activity breaks down by genre, region and country.

4 visualizations →
v2.3

Interactive Maps

Choropleth maps of the metal world: pick a genre, drag through the years and watch each country heat up as its scene grows. Every region is now live — pick a genre and watch the world fill in.

7 maps →

Genre Analysis

How the genres rose and fell from 1964 to today — year by year, country by country, with landmark releases marked and per-capita leaders for every style.

4 visualizations →

Geographic Analysis

Metal production across 15 world regions — from Scandinavia to Southeast Asia. Head-to-head matchups between regions and countries, plus output measured per million people.

5 visualizations →

Continental Rankings

Which countries lead each continent, how the continents compare against one another, and decade-by-decade snapshots of how the map of metal has shifted.

4 visualizations →
Project Info

Todo

  • Rest API Implementation to retrieve population data from the UN database.
  • Separate the current repository into three different ones: backend, population, frontend.
  • Documentation... the bane of every developer.
  • Polish the current backend processes. Still a bit clunky and fickle.
  • Mobile testing & refinements.
  • Migration to TypeScript?
  • More genres
  • Expand landmark coverage to remaining genres: Gothic, NWoBHM, Progressive, Black/Death, Sludge, Stoner, Groove, Metalcore.

Changelog

July 2026

Interactive Maps & Country Profiles (v2.3)

  • Interactive genre maps for seven world regions — Europe, the Middle East, North & Middle America, South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia & Oceania. Pick a genre and drag through the years (or hit Play) to watch each country's scene heat up from 1964 to 2025.
  • Country Profile — search any country for a one-page snapshot of its scene: total releases, world and regional rank, peak year, releases per million people, active genres, review activity, and its top genres' evolution over time.
  • Redesigned front page — the visualisations are now grouped into themed sections (Review Analysis, Interactive Maps, Genre Analysis, Geographic Analysis, Continental Rankings), each with its own landing page, plus a one-click jump back to the section from every page.
  • Regional tidy-up — the Baltic states and the South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia) now sit under Eastern Europe, and Turkey is labelled Türkiye throughout.
June 2026

Review Analysis section (v2.2)

  • New dataset: 135,551 Metal Archives reviews spanning 2002–2026.
  • Canon Formation — bubble chart correlating album release year against review year, revealing which eras the community keeps returning to.
  • Rating Distribution — stacked bar showing the shift in rating patterns year by year, with a separate 100% band.
  • Reviewer Buckets — mean rating and histogram per experience tier (Casual through Elite), decomposing grade inflation by reviewer cohort.
  • Reviews by Genre — review volume, average ratings, and share over time across 14 genre families (Black, Death, Thrash, Doom, and more).
  • Reviews by Region — review activity and ratings broken down across 12 world regions, with proportional share view.
  • Country Explorer — drill into any region and compare individual countries side by side.
  • Releases vs Reviews — correlates cumulative review attention per album vintage against annual reviewing activity.
April 2026

Genre chart improvements (v2.1)

  • Hover tooltips on genre charts now show the raw count plus its percentage share across all genres.
  • Landmark annotation system: key album releases marked as dashed amber vertical lines, selectable per-genre via a new sidebar panel.
  • Event listener are now better implemented. Less button clicking needed.
24th February 2026

Release of new version

  • New version online.
January 2026 - February 2026

Major UI overhaul

  • New dark theme design with metal aesthetic with the help of AI (Claude Code)
  • Custom SVG icons for all visualization cards
  • Improved responsive layout
  • Theme persistence across sessions
May 2025 - December 2025

Data & visualization updates

  • Redone the entire backend and aggregation of all datasets
  • Started with some initial and small data presentations
May 2025

New dataset received

  • Retrieved a new and improved dataset from Hellblazer.
  • new content has the data divided over years and countries.