On an idle whim I looked up videos on one of the earliest video games I ever played, Grand Theft Auto 2. While watching the game something struck me, the song “Toucan Pie” by Stylus Exodus has an intro that is so absurdly close to Yes’s “Siberian Khatru” I have no idea how they got away with it, and it further enhances their mirroring real life while creating their own world sensibilities that would become further enhanced with the next entry in the GTA cannon. At the time, the GTA series was establishing itself as a unique entry into the universe of video games. It’s top down delivery, open ended world, and crazed sense of humor allowed it to stand out against other games of its day, something they capitalized on fully with future games in the series.
No game took the reigns of then novel CD/Computer high definition 16 bit audio like GTA did, and what GTA did up to this point was unique. By mixing licensed real world music within game creations they formulated their own worldbuilding scheme unlike any other. It created an environment so of its own sensibility—from the in game absolutely daft narrators on the radio, to the scarily period accurate in-game music—it enhanced the insanity and definitively British blackened satire driving the main characters urge to murder, rob, and steal to a soundtrack set to characters and music right out of a Chris Morris project. It’s this intense mirroring that made me want to inspect the game and the series more.
In GTA 3, their major leap to the 3D world was a smash success taking place in a city not too far off from New York City. The attitude was enhanced, and the pedestrians and mob bosses were all kept, while the radio narrators and general zany character aspect was toned down a bit, but was still subtle and sly enough on second glance that the spirit was kept well enough alive. A specific example is Bitch’n’ Dog Food, which is described on the GTA 3 website as serving “"tasty bone meal, chicken carcasses, the scrapings off the abattoir floor and lots of other nutritional goodies". The mirroring of the real world through satire of mob groups, advertising, and personality traits is on full display in GTA 3 behind all the various killings and money stealing you do as a player. Perhaps this is on full display no more so than in the soundtrack.
GTA 3 was a unique example as it used a mixture of half music created for the game itself and music licensed from existing artists. For every Craig Connor track, you had a Royce Da 5’9 track. For every Stuart Ross track, you had a Slyder mix etc. They were intensely dedicated to have the game exist like a funhouse mirror of real life. Have you stopped and listened to the in-game commercials? They’re batshit insane but also not that far off from commercials I remember of the time. What about the songs “Good Thing” and “Fadeaway”? These are two of the most period correct pop music satire creations I’ve ever heard. If you ever wanted to show someone what 2000-2001 sounded like, if you showed them those two songs one would think they were songs on the radio.
It’s humor continues with the intense tongue in cheek (in this case ass cheek) “Bump To The Music” by Fatamarse (check out that UK style artist name punnery.) Total hilarity, but completely normal in terms of all the ass worship in music and music videos at the time! In just a few short years Shakira’s hips weren’t lying, but for those of us who had played GTA 3 we weren’t surprised it happened in that decade. However not every song in the game was all for laughs. Under the name April’s In Paris, Craig Conner’s “Feels Like I Just Can’t Take No More” aside from continuing the insane period accurate pop rock is one of my favorite songs from this game and I still listen to it, even if it makes me want to swoop my bangs and watch Dawson’s Creek.
GTA 2 and 3 were massive entry points for me into specific eras and worlds of music. GTA 3 single-handedly got me into dub music via Scientists K-Jah station, and Rise FM got me into what is probably the era's best Trance mix with Slyder’s “Score (Original Mix)”. This was long before the series abandoned their own in-house creations for branding and building stars with their Flying Lotus led stations and licensing what was essentially the Decline of Western Civilization soundtrack for their punk station. It was something the series lost. Back when they had less money for licensing and could take risks, they could give other artists a chance to build their own world to a more unique and interesting viewpoint.
GTA 2 and 3’s tone and character wouldn’t exist if not for the voice actors and songwriters that took a chance to mirror the late ‘90s and early ‘00s in such an eerily specific manner. GTAs ability to mimic the absurd winking stupidly of society at that time through MTV, TRL, and music marketing in general, the sound and appeal of the in-game music enhanced and represented that era that upon second listen it was borderline magic. GTA had such a specific eye built off of gen-x creators they were willing to show how the world really was starting with the music and it’s something they never did again.
GTA Vice City was praised for its music soundtrack (and it is amazing) and set the ground for the style of revivalism that took its place years later with Hotline Miami, and the endless millennial nostalgia and pilfering of the 1980s through the specific lens of synthwave and culture. Potentially Vice City is to blame for making people want to live in Miami Vice their entire lives, but one look at the soundtrack would convince you otherwise. Specifically hand picked to go beyond just CLASSIC 80s HITZ, Roxy Music’s deathless “More Than This” sits right beside Mantronix’s “Bassline”, and next to Davy DMX’s “One For The Treble” is Toto’s “Africa”. They were keen to recreate an era those would be familiar with (and one that would make perfect sense) to both a popular audience willing to embrace its period accurate nostalgia, but one that those who lived it and knew that era through and through could appreciate its intensity of crate digging nerd-dom. That style of nerd-dom and semi-authority would dissipate through the years as‘80s nostalgia became the same twenty songs over and over as if ClearChannel runs all of our lives. This is to be expected of course, but just as the nostalgia wave for that era was creeping in with Vice City, they made one last attempt to remind us that Zapp and Roger still existed.
By GTA 4 and 5 the game was moving away from the music aspect built in-house and more towards replicating how the characters existed and interacted. The accuracy of our lives was being played out in front of us by how Michael spoke and Franklin reacted, but it was becoming increasingly ham-fisted and Hollywood style writings that soured the experience. Gone was the zany and sly tone of the early games in favor of broader gestures, no surprise for a game series so massive with such a heavy following. If you’ve ever seen any large video game launch and complained about their dialogue or screenwriting, GTA’s recent developments are squarely to blame. Realizing they had to conform to a new identity and move past their old one is a decent sign of development and honestly one that was needed. But, It came at the cost of removing what made those early games unique and giving younger artists with specific and interesting viewpoints a chance to live out their satirical fantasies through music and voice acting.
There is a certain nexus that occurs when money starts entering just enough and you find just the right people that the tone of the entire project comes into perfect focus. Of course this all happened with the right amount of musical direction. Not too much real life music, but just enough to allow the in-game features enough to make you feel like you’re somewhere else not just your backyard. Then again, that was only able to happen when DMA/Rockstar only had a certain amount of money to afford said licensing and grow their brand/platform. Money helps everything but giving people opportunities to build a unique world is sometimes a greater idea.
Unsurprising that in GTA 5 the soundtrack had very little unique content as they were content with building Flying Lotus as a personality and authority of music within a game whose protagonists spoke like Shane Black characters. It was a game firmly removed from itself in terms of its stylistic choices and direction, it’s overall tone shifting from sly subversion to “dude society is LAME”, something the original creators would’ve winced at. However this is what happens when you become a multi-million dollar franchise impacting the entire industry. As much as you affect everyone else they start affecting you as well.
GTA is as much to praise (or blame) for getting new generations of fans into other types of music. Guitar Hero and Rock Band followed this formula to a literal example of having people physically play the music. As the music industry crashed and more and more musicians stopped selling records, licensing and sync rights became the order of the day and a way to pay the bills. Not only did GTA, Guitar Hero, and Rock Band get lucky that they were in the right place and right time, they aided new generations to benefit from a failing industry. The musicians got paid and got promotions. It got me into new music, how ‘bout you?