# TheMetalNet

> Explore heavy metal bands, genres, line-ups and discographies on a free interactive map.

TheMetalNet maps heavy metal end to end: every genre and sub-genre, the bands that define each one, their full line-ups and discographies, the scenes they came from, and the connections between them.

## What this site is

TheMetalNet is a free reference catalog of heavy metal presented as an explorable 3D map. Genres are nebulas, bands are solar systems, and albums and musicians orbit the band they belong to. Every band, album, musician, genre, country and city in the catalog also has a plain, permanent URL that works without the 3D view.

The catalog covers the whole of the genre taxonomy and the bands inside it: full line-ups with founding, current and past members, complete discographies with release years and labels, each band's status and lyrical themes, and the scene it came from by country and city.

## What you can do here

- Explore the whole genre taxonomy as an interactive 3D map
- Drill from a genre to its sub-genres, bands, albums and musicians
- Follow the connections between bands: shared members, related acts, and what their listeners play alongside them
- Full line-ups, with founding members, current members and past members
- Full discographies with track listings, release years and labels
- See where a scene is on a 3D world map, by country and by city
- Rewind the map through time to watch scenes appear decade by decade
- Save bands to your own galaxy and share it as a link
- Play a band without leaving the map
- Rate bands, albums, musicians and genres
- Search that forgives accents, typos and abbreviations
- A plain, permanent page for every band, album, musician, genre and city

## URL patterns

Every entity has both an HTML page and a Markdown version at the same address with `.md` appended.

| Entity | URL | Markdown |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Band | `https://themetalnet.com/band/{slug}` | `https://themetalnet.com/band/{slug}.md` |
| Album | `https://themetalnet.com/album/{album-id}` | append `.md` |
| Musician | `https://themetalnet.com/musician/{slug}` | append `.md` |
| Genre or sub-genre | `https://themetalnet.com/genre/{slug}` | append `.md` |
| Country | `https://themetalnet.com/country/{iso-3166-1-alpha-2}` | append `.md` |
| City | `https://themetalnet.com/country/{code}/{city}` | append `.md` |

Genre slugs are unique across both levels of the taxonomy, so `/genre/black-metal` resolves whether the name is a macro genre or a sub-genre.

## Citing this site

Cite the canonical HTML URL, not the `.md` twin. The genre taxonomy, the sub-genre descriptions and the map itself are TheMetalNet's own work.

## Site index

- [Home and full 3D map](https://themetalnet.com/): the interactive universe, all genres at once.
- [Sitemap index](https://themetalnet.com/sitemap.xml): every band, album, musician, genre, country and city page.
- [Support](https://themetalnet.com/support): how to report a wrong record or a missing band.
- [Contribute](https://themetalnet.com/contribute): how the project is funded.
- [Terms of Service](https://themetalnet.com/terms)
- [Privacy Policy](https://themetalnet.com/privacy)
- [Full catalog summary](https://themetalnet.com/llms-full.txt): the whole genre taxonomy, plus the most prominent bands in the catalog.