How 'Grand Theft Auto' Is Changing the Way the World Experiences Music (rollingstone.com) 120
An anonymous reader shares a report: GTA V and its multiplayer GTA Online mode has already proven itself a thriving game and money maker for both developer Rockstar and publisher Take-Two -- with sales approaching 100 million copies and bringing in more than $6 billion, now one of the most successful video games in history is also becoming something else, perhaps not too unexpectedly: A powerful tool for music discovery. Use of music has always been something video game makers Rockstar prides itself on. From the Billy Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Dinah Washington songs found in L.A. Noire, a detective action-adventure game, to the mix of 1970s rock in The Warriors game, music is one of the more important elements of pop culture that the developers use to help create memorable times and places for its titles.
Nowhere is that more evident than in the long-running Grand Theft Auto series. While the franchise has always featured some sort of working, in-game radio stations, each new iteration expanded on the concept. By 2013 and the release of GTA V, the game's 15 unique radio stations, packed with 240 fully licensed songs and pre-recorded on-air talent, had become nearly as important as the game itself. [...] In the five years since launch, GTA V and GTA Online gamers have listened to more than an estimated 75 billion minutes of music from the game's 18 radio stations, according to Rockstar's own analysis provided to Rolling Stone.
Nowhere is that more evident than in the long-running Grand Theft Auto series. While the franchise has always featured some sort of working, in-game radio stations, each new iteration expanded on the concept. By 2013 and the release of GTA V, the game's 15 unique radio stations, packed with 240 fully licensed songs and pre-recorded on-air talent, had become nearly as important as the game itself. [...] In the five years since launch, GTA V and GTA Online gamers have listened to more than an estimated 75 billion minutes of music from the game's 18 radio stations, according to Rockstar's own analysis provided to Rolling Stone.
Billie Holiday (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yeah, at one point popular music was actually good here in the US. Hard to believe.
Most of it was always garbage, but at least there was stuff worth paying for up through the nineties. Since then it's all been a bit same-y. Maybe we've already invented all the kinds of music worth listening to, and it will all be downhill from here. Now that old music is outselling new music, it seems a plausible idea.
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Was someone making this claim?
Does everything we do have to improve humanity? I could say the same thing about some or all pro sports like American football nothing good comes from that sport.
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Funny you say that. In general pop nusic was always bad. No exeption. It is just that we adapted andf think fond of it now.
In the main part, yes. On the other hand, there were actual gems hidden in the field of turds, and you had to walk barefoot through it in the hopes that you'd catch one between your toes. For every Prince, there were a dozen Millis and Vanillis. Also, my local pop station also carried Dr. Demento.
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It amuses me when people talk of Prince as some huge deal. Back in the day I thought he was just some guy they tried to push as a rival to Michael Jackson but didn't even come close.
Re: Billie Holiday (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm surprised that you see them as being similar in any way. Prince's third album, Dirty Mind, came out two years before Michael Jackson's Thriller, and both were pretty unique, in different ways. And Prince played all the instruments on his album.
The way I always saw it, Prince was R&B for people who already had pubic hair, and Michael was pop for those who hadn't grown any yet.
Personally, in 1980, I was listening to punk rock and so forth, but even then I could tell that Prince was something special.
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Even if they had different styles, I recall clearly that the media image of them as rivals was extremely common in the early to mid 90s.
Regardless, MJ was not my favorite pop artist back then either, but Roxette and A-ha.
Thank Clearchannel for that... (Score:2, Interesting)
You can thank the FCC for allowing companies like ClearChannel to buy up radio stations, homogenize them. It seems to me, that from there, they just drop an iPod Shuffle down on a table, add a few DJ breaks, and call it done, playing the same 50-100 licensed songs from there on out, except with an old "King Biscuit Flower Hour". In just a few years, they turned radio from a living, thriving medium to a time warp of 70s garbage, and made the medium all but worthless except for talk radio and pirate station
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You can thank the FCC for allowing companies like ClearChannel to buy up radio stations, homogenize them. It seems to me, that from there, they just drop an iPod Shuffle down on a table, add a few DJ breaks, and call it done, playing the same 50-100 licensed songs from there on out, except with an old "King Biscuit Flower Hour". In just a few years, they turned radio from a living, thriving medium to a time warp of 70s garbage, and made the medium all but worthless except for talk radio and pirate stations.
They do that because fewer and fewer people listen, which means fewer ads sold and at lower rates. They try to keep the cost of their content in line with revenues so they remain profitable. Expect broadcast radio to all but disappear in a few years.
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You can thank the FCC for allowing companies like ClearChannel to buy up radio stations, homogenize them. It seems to me, that from there, they just drop an iPod Shuffle down on a table, add a few DJ breaks, and call it done, playing the same 50-100 licensed songs from there on out, except with an old "King Biscuit Flower Hour". In just a few years, they turned radio from a living, thriving medium to a time warp of 70s garbage, and made the medium all but worthless except for talk radio and pirate stations.
They do that because fewer and fewer people listen, which means fewer ads sold and at lower rates. They try to keep the cost of their content in line with revenues so they remain profitable. Expect broadcast radio to all but disappear in a few years.
It's a death spiral. Less people listen due to MP3's, streaming services, etc. The stations consolidate and then play the same 10 songs on rotation, reducing costs. Listeners hate listening to the same 10 songs, so they leave, rinse, repeat....
Personally, I listen to independent streaming radio stations. They are willing to play local and new artists.
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The amount of good music has continued to climb. It's the discoverability that's gotten harder. Unless you know where to look, you're not going to find music that appeals to you. And you won't find any of it on the radio unless you just have really poor taste.
Excuse me for CTS, but TFS... "packed"? Really? (Score:2)
I don't think "packed" and "240" imply anywhere near the same kind of things here.
Let's say it's 1/4 rap, 1/4 country, 1/4 rock, 1/4 classical. I'm not going to subject myself to either rap or country, so already we're at 120 songs. Of those, some will inevitably suck, and we're down to even fewer. Of those, there will be ones that are played out, and I won't want to listen to them, so even fewer. 240 is a drop in the bucket if I'm actually going to spend any serious time
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I don't buy it one little bit. Playing the game, want to listen to music in reality, go to configuration turn music down to zip and turn on stereo system to run in background. The only reason to change station is because of annoying music and couldn't actually be bothered turning it off, having once turned it down.
What really happened, they bought cheap music, which turned out to be older music and older music has more staying power than new music because the new music is autotune shit, performed by perfor
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GTA V the multi-player is empty shite pay to win rubbish, the single player is not bad just a bit empty.
It's bad because they are totally incompetent at preventing cheating. There are just so many cheaters in the game that the pay to win almost doesn't even matter because it's not the dominant paradigm... cheaters are.
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There's plenty of good music still, you just won't find it in the pop genres.
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America still has not warmed up to the amazing sound of the accordion.
The accordion has already come and gone, and now the only guy still using it is Weird Al Yankovic (whose father had a polka band.) It's had its day.
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I'm pretty sure Fallout 3 introduced gamers to Billie Holiday, LA Noire only gets a mention because of who made it.
This has been going on for a long time. Virgin Records were pretty much catapulted to success (and thus kickstarting Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Money, Virgin Media...) thanks to a small but haunting excerpt of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells appearing in the 1973 box-office smash The Exorcist.
Music in popular films sells copies of that music.
Music in popular TV sells copies of that mu
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The 80s had top quality pop acts like A-ha, Alphaville, Duran Duran, Information Society, Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, The Human League, Depeche Mode, New Order, The Bolshoi, Tears For Fears, Eurythmics...
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Billie Holiday, not Billy. At least GTA taught Millenials about Alice in Chains. Yeah, at one point popular music was actually good here in the US. Hard to believe.
I miss the days back in high school in the early 2000s when groups like Alice in Chains were played on the local hard rock/90s alt station. Really, I miss the days when my major metropolitan area actually had a hard rock/90s alt station...the best song played on the radio right now is the Bad Wolves cover of Zombie.
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Clear Channel owns, operates, programs, or sells airtime for nearly 1,200 radio stations.
When 3-4 companies own 90% of the radio stations, you can hear the monopoly.
Re:Billie Holiday (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazing coincidence that it happened to the time when you were young...
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If they were smart they'd hook in real radio stations and not worry about losing licenses.
Removed Music (Score:5, Insightful)
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They have to, since their license expired from those artists/studios.
You don't own software you buy, you only license it.
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Of course this nonsense only applies to systems that are online. Those who bought GTA IV on disc on previous gen consoles can keep enjoying it with all the songs forever. That's one of the few things I hate about platforms like Steam: You can get your game modified unilaterally at any time and you can'
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They shouldn't be able to do that.
Quick, go write your senators so we can have a law to protect the people
* Crickets *
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To be fair when the GTA 3 trilogy was around they never thought they would be releasing it digitally years later. And of course the disk copies still have it all (though need a few (third party) patches to work right).
Should this occur with 4 or 5 then they do have something to answer for. They should have seen the need to purchase rights in perpetuum for them.
Did they? Let's see.
I'm sure if the rights holders were realistic in the new fees they wanted they would still be there. Just look at many dvd/bluray
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https://www.polygon.com/2018/4... [polygon.com]
We need a better model for use of music (Score:3)
If you want to use their music for your own work, even if it is for free, they'll still do whatever they can to take it down and make life painful for you. Yet, no one asked the artists themselves.
I know that for some smaller indie artists if people use their music to promote something or just because it fits well, it will mean a lot to them. This usually happens when someone with little money wants to do something to pay tribute in some way, as they have their own bills to pay. At least many now have the decency to include the name of the artist and the song, but hell no if you are to use big record companies' music anywhere unless you are part of their agenda.
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We need to ABOLISH COPYRIGHT. Get rid of the concept altogether.
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They did, However the game was a fad that just lasted for a little while.
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And yet, my friend's kids are starting to play it, seeing a 7 year old gleefully drumming along with classic rock is hilarious. If I could track down a guitar for my XBox 360 (which didn't cost a fortune) my wife and I would be playing it again because she absolutely loved the game and wants to play again. It would be awesome to have again for the winter.
The problem is they just kept making variations on the game and saturated the ma
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Maybe for you and your circle of friends, but we played it for years and years. Someone is running late for DnD (or can't play because of work) and suddenly it's not RPG night it's Guitar Hero night! Sometimes we would just never get around to stop taking turns playing and the whole evening would be Guitar Hero. We had the full kit, drums and all. When we changed cities it kind of did start gathering dust, it's way more fun playin
Other games with amazing soundtracks (Score:3)
GTA was the first game I remember which really had a broad variety of music, but that actually turns out to be an annoyance by just the fifth or sixth time you steal a pickup truck and have to listen to some country crap. On the other hand, Wipeout XL, and Need for Speed: Underground and its sequel ...2 had really fantastic music.
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fifth or sixth time you steal a pickup truck and have to listen to some country crap
The Ballad of Chapped Lips Calhoon you mean? mmm mm menfolk found their women scary mmm mm mmm m
Well that was so darn good I reckon I'll play it again.
I mean sure, there was a limited range, but for 1997 it was incredible, a techincal and artistic masterpiece. I mean CDs only held what 70 minutes of music? And it ran on machines that were barely able to decode MP3s realtime as their only task. And there was a game to play
Diversity is key. (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a lot of good music out there, but for the most part we lock ourselves into a particular genres. Normally after enough exposure to a point where we get it, we find that it isn't as bad as we thought. However exposure is the key and the real problem.
Video games, or movies, tv shows, etc...
Are a good way to create exposure. Because you will not normally make yourself sit down and Listen to music you don't necessarily like until you learned to like it.
If you don't like Rap, you are not going to listen to it for hours until you realize its appeal. or sit you way through an Opera so you can enjoy classical period music.
However you may play a game with the music in the background and you may get to a point where that song from the genres you hated you are actually looking forward to listening too.
The key to good music is repetition, and expectation. There is some out of the ordinary spice added to it, to make it interesting, but it will resolve back to the familiar.
Re:Diversity is key. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't like Rap, you are not going to listen to it for hours until you realize its appeal.
If I there's rap, I'll just not play the game.
Anecdote: Some years ago, shopkeepers in a few cities hit upon a way to drive all the riff-raff away from their store fronts. Play classical music.
Rap is just the other side of this. If you want to attract scum and drive away paying customers, play rap.
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Well you are free to live in your closed little world, without trying to experience what else is out there.
Classical Music doesn't get rid of the riff-raff, it is a statement of saying that we do not want kids here, or we prefer that particular type of ambiance.
The kid who is going to cause trouble isn't going to be stopped or is dissuaded by the music, however this isn't party or high-energy music so the Riff-Raff may not feel compelled to cause trouble.
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Classical Music doesn't get rid of the riff-raff, it is a statement of saying that we do not want kids here, or we prefer that particular type of ambiance.
The kid who is going to cause trouble isn't going to be stopped or is dissuaded by the music
The kid that's going to cause trouble is there because the other kids are there. If the other kids don't like the music then they wouldn't be there, and the kid that would cause the trouble will fuck off to wherever they went instead and cause trouble there instead.
Thus the riff-raff have been deterred.
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however this isn't party or high-energy music
Not high energy? Ever listen to Wagner or Tchaikovsky?
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Classical Music doesn't get rid of the riff-raff, it is a statement of saying that we do not want kids here, or we prefer that particular type of ambiance.
OTOH, we really want to keep kids away from Jazz-Classical ... it's all sax and violins.
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Train stations in the northeast do it as well. One critic against it dubbed it "acoustic insecticide" against loitering teens, criminals and homeless.
The same properties that drive away the homeless must drive the staff who work there slowly insane...
Re:Diversity is key. (Score:5, Interesting)
Games like GTA that create curated lists (some of the stations are fairly specific in terms of both genre and time) have the ability to pick out some of the best songs or even to add a few deep cuts that most people wouldn't normally be able to find on their own. I think the other aspect of it is that when you do expose people to some of the best a genre has to offer, they'll start to pick up on it, especially as they're exposed to small bits of it when they first get in a vehicle and it defaults to that station. Because there are a limited number of songs, eventually you'll be able to identify a few of them and might even start to listen to them for a bit longer.
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Admittedly I don't know how well music recommendation services work since I don't use Spotify or the like.
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Okay, try this: Similar Artists. [similar-artist.info] Enter a band you like, it will list several similar ones.
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That is surprisingly good. Thanks!
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Let me guess: you've already outsourced clear thinking to a clone of yourself, and this was the result: now your clone-you is really smart, and you aren't.
I suspect this, because somehow you seem not know the first thing about neurology—what wires together fires together—or you would realize that your immersed clone would immediately develop tastes deeper and more sophisticated than your own.
Or did you really mean a "snapshot" clon
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On the nose. I finally figured it out when I was old enough for "oldies" for my generation to be a thing. They play the 100 or so most popular of the most popular music from that decade, and still half of it is no better than pleasant and forgettable ear candy. Yes, I like listening to these oldies stations well enough, but the "real deal" when I was young was pretty annoying, because it was the popular 20%, not the curated top 10% of the top 10%.
No wonder crotchety old people think that young folks' mus
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Life is too short to listen to cRap, not that I have any particular dislike to Rap in particular, I just don't like 99% of it.
I once dated someone who loved dance music, and dancing. So I would go clubbing with her a LOT and I never got used to the shit music.
Sometimes something just doesn't appeal, and that's fine, but assuming if you have enough exposure to something you will start liking it is bullshit.
Fo
Pretty shitty (Score:2)
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Yeah. Do us all a favour, save the music licence budget and knock a fiver off the cost of the game.
I very rarely listen to in-game music. In a way that's a shame, as there's some excellent music added to games, often original. I just can't devote my entire hearing attention to games, and music on top of the game's ambient and activity related sounds is just too much.
GTA radio IRL (Score:2)
Grand Theft Auto V had the worst soundtrack (Score:1)
I thought the radio stations on San Andreas and Vice City were the best parts of the game. GTA V, in comparison, has bland, generic tunes, and the talk radio is woefully unfunny and boring.
SeanBaby is much more interesting than I am:
SeanBaby [cracked.com]
Dunno about you (Score:2)
The last time I played GTA was Vice City.
It seemed every damn car I got into was tuned to the same radio station and started playing " ( Keep Feeling ) Fascination " by The Human League.
After the Nth time hearing it, ( Where N equals a ridiculously large number ) I made a new rule. Any time I climbed into a vehicle and it started up, I would immediately drive off the nearest cliff . . .
I refuse to listen to that damn song to this day lol
Good to hear Rockstar has expanded their selection a bit in the years
I concur (Score:5, Funny)
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I only steal cars outside venues playing music I like and if I don't like the music, I just ditch the car.
This is way cheaper than what I used to do, which was buying used cars and then selling them off if I didn't like the music.
240 licensed songs? (Score:2)
Considering the speed they get patched out of the game, that's not too much. Maybe in 10 years we still have at least one or two working radio channels.
Why minutes? (Score:5, Informative)
Why'd they stop at minutes? They could've made the metric sound even more fantastic by listing it as "4.5 trillion seconds of music."
For comparison:
rockstar almost has it (Score:4, Interesting)
There seems to be a lot of radio stations but after awhile I find myself not even listening to it. It's the same repetitive songs and commercials every hour or so. It's like a Clear Channel station.
The solutions are make each station 4 to 5 hours long to make it less likely to run into stuff.
Integrate Spotify or insert music service here.
Quarterly music changes for as long as the game is officially supported.. aka while it earns money.
For a game that made 6 BILLION dollars, I think they can afford this feature.
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Agreed! Since they went the route of making GTAV with the "online" mode, you could at least stream different music selections when playing it that way, as opposed to the "canned" tracks in the game for offline play.
Personally, I find GTAV both amazing and disappointing at the same time. There's clearly so much effort that went into creating an immersive, nicely rendered landscape to run around in. Plus the vehicles are pretty cool, and are one of the things they're constantly upgrading in the online mode.
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There seems to be a lot of radio stations but after awhile I find myself not even listening to it. It's the same repetitive songs and commercials every hour or so. It's like a Clear Channel station.
Rockstar strives for high realism in their game universe!
dang (Score:1)
I Turn Off the Music (Score:2)
For me, it's a distraction. I just turn it off.
I still listen to GTA3 stations (Score:2)
Fix up the music licenses (Score:2)
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Yes, Rockstar are clearly retarded and have no idea how to make a popular game.
I wouldn't know about David Axelrod (Score:2)
Were it not for GTAIV.
Some great tunes in the games, but utterly disgraceful that they have to 'patch out' music every 10 years. (GTA San Andreas 4 or 5 years ago, GTAIV maybe a year or so ago?)
Appalling licensing deals, just a disgrace. I'll assume it's the music industry, being shit-heels.