Popular Music: The Classic Graphic by Reebee Garofalo

The wonderful visual history of pop/rock music by Reebee Garofalo, featured in my Visual Explanations (pp. 90-91), is now available as a big poster at HistoryShots, the distinguished publisher of many excellent graphic prints.

For Reebee Garofalo’s life and work, as well as an electronic version of the pop/rock music chart, look here.

Here is HistoryShots’ description of their new 36 by 20 inch poster:

This print is a reproduction of Reebee Garofalo’s Genealogy of Pop/Rock Music chart which has been praised by many scholars and fans alike.

Covering the time period from 1955 to 1978, more than 700 artists and 30 styles of music are mapped in currents flowing from left-to-right. For each performer, the length of time that he/she remained a major hit maker is provided. The overlapping streams allow you to compare the longevity and influence of multiple artists for the same time period. The birth and genealogy of each stylistic category is presented, along with an estimation of its share of total record sales.

Genealogy of Pop/Rock Music is referenced in Edward Tufte’s Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative (Graphics Press): “With intense richness of detail, this nostalgic and engaging chart fascinates many viewers … Also the illustration presents a somewhat divergent perspective on popular music: songs are not merely singles — unique, one-time, de novo happenings — rather, music and music-makers share a pattern, a context, a history.”

This print is printed on high-quality, fine art, acid-free archival paper. It was printed on a Heidelberg offset press. In addition to the four-color printing process, each print is sealed with aqueous-satin coating to provide further longevity.

Credits: Concept and design: Reebee Garofalo. Graphics services: Damon Rarey and Jean Nicolazzo