I’m excited to share my progress on the print-edition of The LEGO Parts Guide, a few cool sets released this month, and some awesome articles, videos, and podcasts. But first, and speaking of podcasts, let’s find out how learning about the history of Rock and Roll might apply to LEGO builders.

Rock & Roll × LEGO?

This month, I started listening to an intensely detail-oriented podcast series which explores A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs. Each episode by Andrew Hickey is ostensibly about a single song that’s critical to the history of the genre, but in practice the show offers a series of long audio essays about the musicians who created the song, the music that influenced their creative process, and how each song sets the stage for future innovations in rock music.

While it is obviously not at all related to LEGO, I’ve already listened to 66 episodes. I wanted to share some broader insights derived from the history of Rock & Roll that will be of interest to LEGO builders.

You can’t really choose ‘the first’ Rock and Roll song.
The style evolved slowly out of R&B and Country traditions rather than emerging fully-formed, so it’s impossible to say exactly when it changed enough to warrant a new designation.

I struggled with similar issues when researching architectural styles for my book The LEGO Architect since new styles emerge as a result of slower evolutionary processes.

Organizing music (or LEGO parts) into categories is hard — and often easier in retrospect.
Within the podcast, we learn how the name Rhythm and Blues (R&B) was invented by Billboard magazine as a commercially-motivated category for historically black musical traditions as diverse as Blues, Boogie-woogie, and Gospel.

For my LEGO Parts Guide, I go out of my way to organize parts based on their intrinsic function over historical precedent. This makes the system more approachable for newer builders — you shouldn’t need to understand how new parts and building techniques evolved over time to figure out where things belong.

Artistic traditions tend to evolve slowly, then suddenly.
This shows up time and time again in the history of music. The adoption of new equipment such as the electric bass or new vocal techniques can cause an immediate shift in an emerging style.

The same trend shows up in the history of LEGO. This is why the historical anecdotes in my book focus on revolutionary new parts like the Headlight brick which introduce a new technique rather than incremental improvements from similar parts that follow.

LEGO Parts Guide

As I continue pushing towards the Beta 2 version of my LEGO Parts Guide, I have made progress on several fronts this month:

• Added a conclusion to the book to reinforce main themes of the book: the value in establishing a hierarchy of parts, familiarity with Connector Pairs, and encouragement to personalize the book with your own annotations. (More in this month’s post for patrons: Conclusions are hard…)
• A full edit pass to address minor errors, improve part names, and increase overall consistency.
• Flagged about a dozen more complex issues to fix in the Beta 2 version. I am tracking these as ‘P1’ issues. I also flagged a dozen illustrations that need to be refined, and some lower priority issues to fix as time allows.

As always, supporters of this project on Patreon get an inside look at the creative process. This month’s article Curated ≠ Complete sparked a healthy discussion about how I decided which parts to include in the guide… It’s part art and part science.

New at Brick Architect

Here’s a quick summary of what’s new this month:

• A history of LEGO Mechs: Exo-Force to Ninjago’s #71860 Lloyd’s Titan Mech
  Let’s explore 20 years of LEGO Mechs: From their introduction with Exo-Force to the massive mechs in the Ninjago series.
• Updated: LEGO Parts Guide
  • Added 34 parts to the online guide. They will be included in the next draft of the printed guide.
  • Added (or updated) 38 part images.

April 2026 releases for AFOLs

This month doesn’t have a ton of new sets, but there are some decent GWPs such as #40765 Kamino Training Facility with $160 Star Wars purchase and #30716 Cute Easter Bunny with a much more modest $40 purchase.

• #72050 Mario Kart – Luigi & Mach 8
  The brick-built figure looks pretty good, although the custom moustache piece is helping a lot…
  2234 pieces, ages 18+, $180, Available now at LEGO.com
• #21367 Tintin Moon Rocket (LEGO Ideas)
  This LEGO Ideas set feels overpriced and I don’t have a connection to the source material, but I’m always happy to see sets that will appeal to new audiences.
  1283 pieces, ages 18+, $160 Available now at LEGO.com.

#72050 Mario Kart – Luigi & Mach 8

• #43025 Nike Air Max 95
  1213 pieces, 1 minifig, ages 12+, $100.
• #11378 Douglas DC-3 PAN AM Airliner
  1903 pieces, 4 minifigs, ages 18+, $220.
• #40878 BrickHeadz Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Figures
  567 pieces, ages 10+, $40.

As always, you can explore all of the new releases by visiting the lego.com store. (Making a purchase using our referral link helps support this website.)

Best articles from around the web

This month’s best content was heavily weighted to podcasts and videos. I hope you enjoy them!

• Every Type of Plastic Used By LEGO: 2026 Edition
  I am glad to see that Rylie Howerter just updated her article about the many plastics The LEGO Group uses to create different parts. It’s pretty mind-blowing how many different materials they use!
  —BrickNerd
• Five designer hacks for next-level building
  Here you will find five short videos of LEGO designers showcasing some cool building techniques.
  —LEGO
• Our BOOK vs. the global supply chain (46:30)
  In this two-part episode, Planet Money explores how potential bestselling books get pitched, funded, written, and published. I was struck by both the similarities and differences between this world and my experiences with self‑publishing.
  —Planet Money

The work will expand to fill up whatever amount of time you assigned to get it all done. This idea has a name … it’s called Parkinson’s law … Every book could eat all the time in the world because every book is a big, gigantic, bespoke intellectual project that you could spend years working on.

Planet Money

• A Wave of Color: Exploring the Palette of LEGO Friends
  I enjoyed this look at the modern LEGO friends color palette, with the new 2026 sets organized by color families.
  —BrickNerd
• Bringing Kids’ Drawings to Life in LEGO
  It’s hard not to love this gallery of kid drawings brought to live in expertly-designed brick-built renditions.
  —BrickNerd
• Bricks On Display 2.0
  LEGO history obsessive Carlos José Baragaño Móner created this beautiful display case to house his collection of rare LEGO brick variations. This includes basic bricks with an unusual underside, as well as larger bricks such as Jumbo bricks, Duplo, and Quatro.
  —Brickset