Grand Terrific Atmosphere

GTA – say more? Rockstar's game-turned-open-world gangster epic, which brings PEGI to the barricades faster than speeding limit does a Porsche owner. Over the years, the series has developed from a humdrum top-down shoot-em-up into a 3D shooter with an unspeakable amount of revenue, which satirizes the America of its time in a wonderfully cynical way and holds up a mirror to it. In the case of Vice City , this is an exaggerated version of the Florida metropolis of Miami on the east coast of the USA. If the man in the white suit and the 'Vice' in the name aren't clue enough, there are also numerous allusions to the Miami Vice. In fact, one of the tracks (Crocketts Theme by Jan Hammer) from the series has even made it into the game.

I don't need to say much about the story, because the general idea of the GTA-games follows the good old American Dream: 'From rags to riches', from nobody to big boss. In Vice City , we play Tommy Vercetti, an Italian gangster from Liberty City (GTA's version of New York), who has to raise money quickly for his boss after a deal gets busted and becomes the kingpin of the beach metropolis in the course of the game. Also included are numerous pop culture references to films, series and companies. In order to traverse the game world, which was huge by the standards of the time, we can steal cars in keeping with the name of the series. This not only saves time, but also allows us to completely immerse ourselves in this version of 80s Miami. As to why: the soundtrack.

Games from the Grand Theft Auto-series

Grand Theft Auto (1997)

Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999)

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002)

The score of the GTA-games, especially Vice City and its successor San Andreas, is legendary, offering a cross-section of the music of the respective decades with its different radio stations. To make the mix work, the developers have - if I remember correctly - enlisted the help of real-life radio hosts and DJs, such as Lazlow Jones, who plays the completely over-the-top host of the radio station V-Rock . In contrast to its predecessor GTA III , the Vice City-soundtrack features numerous well-known songs by artists such as Michael Jackson, Black Sabbath and Toto, which had no small influence on my musical education due to my young age. A total of 7 different radio stations plus two talk stations with over 100 tracks bring the spirit of the 80s to life and are pleasantly varied. Latin vs. pop, funk vs. hip-hop, rock vs. mellow tunes, garnished with stupidly wacky hosts and commercials like 'Salivex', the third-party spit for the parched mouth.

However, if you turn off the radio, you quickly realize how much the music contributes to the atmosphere and how annoying monotonous engine noises can be. As a result, there was always a radio station playing during my playthroughs, and it was usually Wave 103, the pop channel with tracks like Kids in America by Kim Wilde, Atomic by Blondie and even the German song 99 Luftballons by Nena. But Vice City had another feature in the form of its own radio station, where you could feed in your own mp3s to listen to in-game. So, lacking our own music collection, my brother and I felt challenged to build our own station: Phenomenon FM, with him as the host and me as the feisty chirpy field reporter, reporting live from many locations around the game world where protests were seemingly always in order. Admittedly, our concept was improvable, which is why I uploaded my first music albums in San Andreas instead of my own creations and why I still associate certain songs with moments from this game to this day. The same applies to the tracks from Vice City, like Billie Jean or Africa, which accompanied me during my drives along the Vice City-beach.

Opposed to other reviews, I find it difficult here to rate or discuss specific tracks, since we don't have any kind of narrative impact. Instead, I rather rate the different radio stations. This also does offer one benefit: All the people, who haven't played the game, get to experience the individual stations and dive into the spirit of the time, a kind of best of the 80s. Thus follows a short excerpt of the various radio stations. Nothe that I will – despite being hilarious –exclude both the commercials as well as the DJ moderations from the review. They simply are nothing you want to listen to over and over again, which is why the tracking numbering does shift a bit.

• V-Rock: As my father had introduced me to bands like Led Zepplin and the Rolling Stones at an early age, many of the tracks appealed to me, although some of them were more metal-oriented. I had a lot of fun with songs like Too Young to Fall in Love (Mötley Crüe), I Wanna Rock (Twisted Sister) or Ozzy Osbourne's Bark at the Moon , even if the shredding was always a bit too 'hard' for me away from the corresponding missions. Metalheads will now be banging their heads in disbelief, but I'm a friend of softer sounds - not always, but often ...
• Wave 103: ... as with Wave 103, for example: I Ran (so Far Away) (A Flock of Seagulls), Obsession (Animotion) or Self Control (Laura Branigan). That was music for me - and still is today!
• Emotion 98.3: The name says it all: it's going to be emotional. A rainy street, a look in the mirror, the lonely dance and Missing You (John Waite), Broken Wing (Mr. Mister) or Keep on Loving You (REO Speedwagon); the kitschy heartbreak montage of your favorite tearjerker movie is ready. As a closet romantic, I'm totally into it, the V-Rock-disciples probably want to beat me up now, or they're not such tough guys and join me in singing Africa by Toto. My money's on the latter. Because it's cool.
• Flash FM: Sure, pop always works. It's not called 'popular music' for nothing. That's why I liked to tune in to Hostess Toni on my trips and sing along to gems like Run to You (Bryan Adams), Out of Touch (Hall & Oates) and Hold the Line (Toto) despite my lack of English and singing talent. Luckily, our playroom was in the basement back then, in keeping with the cliché. It didn't bother me, because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to play the 16 track.
• Wildstyle: Absolutely not my taste, neither then nor now. Although the tracks don't seem to have aged well when you listen to them again. Everything is 'cool', 'ganster' and underlaid with funky scratching. As the expert would say: "Too white for this!"
• Fever-105: When I played Vice City I mostly skipped Fever because the funky stuff didn't appeal to me as much as the tracks on the other stations. They weren't bad though, and some of the tracks are quite listenable... for me at least.
• Radio Espantoso: I like Latin jazz, for example when I'm sitting in a cocktail bar or listening to a bit of Buena Vista Social Club over breakfast. In GTA it never really appealed to me because, like Fever 105 , there was too much of a contrast for me to listen to songs like Mama Papa Tu (Mongo Santamaría) or Mambo Mucho Mambo (Machito & His Afro Cuban Orchestra). Lo siento!