When it comes to putting licensed music in video games, no one can touch Rockstar. The radio stations in the Grand Theft Auto games are not just random selections of songs: they're tastefully curated journeys through many different genres, designed to evoke a very particular sense of mood, time, and place. Ask someone about their fondest GTA memory and it probably won't be a mission they remember—it'll be a moment tied to a piece of music. Crossing the desert in San Andreas to the tune of America's Horse With No Name. Driving around GTA 3's Liberty City in the rain with the haunting operatic aria O Mio Babbino Caro playing on Double Clef FM. Getting into a vehicle for the first time in Vice City and hearing the strains of Michael Jackson's Billie Jean. Those are some of mine: you probably have a fair few of your own. Music and Grand Theft Auto are intimately, inseparably linked.
Of course, the series hasn't always licenced its music. In the original GTA the tunes on the radio were created specifically for the game by Craig Conner, Colin Anderson, and Grant Middleton under various aliases. Developer DMA Design wanted to include contemporary licensed music in the game, but getting the rights proved to be prohibitively expensive—so the audio team just made their own. It's an incredibly fun, diverse selection of properly great music, from Grand Theft Auto by Da Shootaz (the game's memorable main theme, also known as Joyride), to low-key bangers like the ridiculously catchy Complications, or the deliciously funky Pootang Shebang, both composed by Conner under the names Ohjaamo and Stylus Exodus. The bass-playing in Pootang Shebang is just ridiculous. Even before it made enough money to afford 'real' songs, music was still a vital part of GTA.
Grand Theft Auto 3, the first 3D game, featured a mix of licensed music and bespoke songs. Throwback station Flashback 95.6 famously featured music taken from the Scarface soundtrack, a film that heavily influenced the early 3D games. The songs on reggae station K-JAH were all taken from a 1981 album by famed dub producer Scientist. Hip-hop station Game Radio played tracks by Royce da 5'9" and Black Rob. But the songs created especially for the game were just as good, particularly the catchy, extremely late '90s pop songs found on Head Radio—Good Thing and Change being clear standouts. The tongue-in-cheek chatter between songs and fake commercials were superb too, with corny DJs like Head Radio's Mike Hunt (say it fast) perfectly capturing the overbearing, obnoxious vibe of commercial American radio stations—something future games would take much further.
At the most basic level, this humorous DJ chatter gives you something entertaining to listen to while driving between missions. But it also does something more important: it makes the city you're in feel bigger, livelier, and richer. When the presenters reference things in the world around you—locations, characters, companies—it gives you a sense that the city you're in is a place, not just a playground for you to cause mayhem in. When oddballs call into talk stations like Vice City's VCPR or GTA 3's Chatterbox FM, it brings the culture and personality of the city to life without you really realising it's having that effect. You're laughing at the dumb jokes, but also buying into the city as a functioning place with a life of its own outside of the dozen gangsters the protagonist hangs out with. These stations really are an intrinsic part of what makes these settings so convincing and enduring.
The DJ patter only got better with each sequel, but in terms of music, everything changed in Vice City. After the runaway success of Grand Theft Auto 3, Rockstar now had the revenue to buy the rights to any song it wanted. Taking full advantage of the story's 1980s setting, it filled Vice City with a massive selection of straight-up classics: Broken Wings by Mister Mister, Two Tribes by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Atomic by Blondie, Gold by Spandau Ballet, (Keep Feeling) Fascination by The Human League. It's just a perfect collection of glossy '80s pop music. But it went deeper than the mainstream hits of the era. On the station Radio Espantoso you'd find a playlist of incredible Latin funk, salsa, and jazz. Wildstyle featured a top tier collection of early, relatively obscure hip-hop. Fever 105 was a feast of superb '70s and '80s funk and soul. It's an unbeatable selection of music.
From this point on, listening to the radio stations in a GTA game was like going crate digging in a tastefully curated record shop. San Andreas, which was set in the 1990s, featured not only a premium selection of world class hip-hop, but choice cuts of grunge, country, disco, house, and classic rock. I've discovered so many bands, songs, and genres through these games that I still listen to today, and will carry with me for the rest of my life. It was through Grand Theft Auto 4—which featured an especially eclectic mix of songs—that I fell in love with the experimental ambient music of Terry Riley and Ray Lynch, and the soulful poetry of Gil Scott-Heron. The track selections in GTA games are clearly the work of people who care deeply about music, which continues through to GTA 5, with its wide-ranging selection of interesting, contemporary music from all over the world—as well as some killer deep cuts from the past.
This passion for music extends to the DJ choices too. A number of legit music legends have hosted in-game shows over the years, including George Clinton, DJ Premier, Roy Ayers, Kenny Loggins, Iggy Pop, Bootsy Collins, Pam Grier, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, and Flying Lotus. As someone who loves music, getting to hang out with these people is a real treat—especially when they're spinning such quality. Other open-world games have pumped money into licensed soundtracks, but they never feel quite as special—like an arbitrary Spotify playlist of recognisable songs, rather than something created specifically to fit the vibe of the game. Rockstar is known for being an industry leader when it comes to building remarkable open worlds and pushing the boundaries of tech—but it deserves just as much kudos for its approach to music. I can't wait to hear what it has in store for Grand Theft Auto 6.