Now unlike most games I've looked at in this ongoing but infrequent series, Grand Theft Auto leans into real world music a lot. So job done I guess just insert a bunch of radio hits from Grand Theft Auto V and be done with it. But no I think its worth some careful consideration here.
Real ones of course will be familiar with the 2.5D worlds of the first two games. It seems like another world now, one where the world wasn't quite ready for the onslaught of the early 21st century and certainly not ready for the many ways in which gaming was about to shock and appall the generations used to the more rudimentary efforts of gaming generations past.
You really don't appreciate the good times while they are happening around you. Between 2001 and 2004, we had a whole trilogy of critically acclaimed 3D Grand Theft Auto games. Games that captured the imagination of a whole generation of gamers. Expand the scope to Grand Theft Auto 4 and that's four games in seven years across two console generations. With hindsight this just feels wild to think about.
Now here I am trying to keep it to the original soundtracks as much as I can, music made for the games specifically. From the initial games title track by Da Shootaz all the way to the efforts of Tangerine Dream in the most recent outing.
Pretty sure it was all in-house stuff for the first two games actually with licensed music only really coming to the forefront from Grand Theft Auto III onwards. Looking back at it though it feels like Rockstar/DMA Design always put the sound at the forefront of the experience, setting the tone and style of its stories as the storytelling evolved throughout the series.
The early games were a little scrappy in most respects but the moment you get in the car and your hear that early attempt at radio chatter, you realise in retrospect how they were trying to capture a certain tone or vibe almost from the very beginning of the series. It probably sounds a little primitive to modern ears but the idea is there to be sure.
Over successive sequels and the move to three dimensions, they only reiterated and refined the approach to sound and music in their games. The catalogue expanded, the genres multiplied and now it is as much a core part of the experience as the violence and the vehicular manslaughter. What was good had now become great and an even more essential part of the experience. Alongside the music came the talk radio stations and hands down some of the best comedy writing in gaming full stop. Now Rockstar fully employed the car radio as a key tool in fleshing out and building the world of these games.
Flashing back to 2013 and installing Grand Theft Auto V on my PS3, I am struck by how the music is baked into my early experiences of the game. By this time Rockstar had really mastered how sound could set the tone for the entire game, indeed its now hard for me to think of the game without remembering the various cues and tracks that kicked off the car chases, the heists and the various story beats. Not to mention the dreamy ambivalence of the pause menu music.
That's about it really for this brief foray down my musical memory of GTA. Much like most people in the world with access to video games, I too shall be losing a not insignificant portion of my free time to Grand Theft Auto VI when it comes out in November. Doubtlessly it will be the single biggest one day loss of productivity the Western world has seen in quite some time. If it's anything like its predecessor I may be listening to it's soundtrack for some time to come.
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