This is a fun little program I wrote back in August 2009. It uses data from Wikipedia to create a map of music genres. In this map genres are interconnected according to their stylistic origins: For example, progressive metal has its origins in progressive rock, which in turn is influenced by hard rock; hard rock has its roots in rock and roll which is stylistically preceded by blues and so on. Based on this, a map can be compiled showing interrelations of all genres Wikipedia lists – which is precisely what this little C++ program does.

Screenshot of a sample music genre map:

Yup, it’s far too huge have as a desktop background, but it is searchable. The newest version of this map was actually created from a total of 863 Wikipedia pages which resulted in 2257 “genre connections”.

Download source code or an already rendered map in PDF format here.