Methodology
Evidence before interpretation.
Always in that order.
The archive is built so that you can reject a conclusion and still keep everything underneath it. That is the point of the tiering: an interpretation should never be able to disguise itself as a documented fact.
The operating chain
Chronology before memory. Evidence before interpretation. Questions before conclusions. A catalogue is worked in release order, not in order of fame, because the sequence is the instrument — hearing a late record first contaminates everything that came before it.
The six tiers
Every claim on this site carries its tier in text and glyph, never in colour alone.
- Documented record — verified dates, credits, track order, official packaging, authenticated interviews. Checkable by anyone.
- Observed in the work — a word, sound, image, placement or structural change directly present in the artifact.
- Intra-catalogue recurrence — a motif or role that repeats or evolves within one artist’s own chronology.
- IWL interpretation — a speaker assignment, symbolic role or transaction reading. A conclusion, and labelled as one.
- Cross-catalogue convergence — a comparable pattern across artists. Evidence of recurrence, not proof of coordination.
- Speculative extension — theological or fictional synthesis built from the pattern. Never presented as a case finding.
Guardrails, shown openly
The same discipline limits the whole project. Recurrence across catalogues is documented where it appears, and labelled as recurrence. The moment it admits inferred sales, it becomes an accusation archive — and that is a different, worse thing than what this is.
What the archive holds
- 1,213 decoded songs, browsable in the song index
- 150 Devil’s Den case files across 92 artists
- Five investigations: Rush, Genesis, The Police, Journey, The Deal
- 1931–2020s by decade, from Skip James forward