Radio stations have always been an important feature in the Grand Theft Auto series. Cruising around the open world, it's important to find a nice blend of music to keep the player engaged and entertained. This is why Grand Theft Auto 5 will contain 15 radio stations, two talk radio stations, 240 licensed songs, and "somewhere in the proximity of" 20 movies of soundtrack score.
According to GTA 5's soundtrack supervisor Ivan Pavlovich, who spoke to Rolling Stone about the game's soundtrack, it's the largest body of music that Rockstar has ever compiled — and the largest self-composed score, too.
"For this game, which is set in our version of modern day Los Angeles, what was important for us was to capture that feeling of L.A. and California," Pavlovich explained. "We approached the radio stations as the musical soundscape [you experience] as you fly into L.A. One of the things we've never done in a GTA game before is a pop station; exploring that made so much sense in the context of L.A."
"Although each of these composers is used to define a character or an environment, what's been interesting about this process is that it's been the first fully collaborative score that we've done," he said.
"Even though you may be triggering one score with a particular character or within a particular area in the world, you're always hearing elements from the other composers. The first time you come into the country you're blown away by Woody Jackson's rock score, but within that you're still hearing elements of Tangerine Dream, and Alchemist and Oh No. So you're never too far away from this core sound that we've established for the game."
GTA 5's full tracklisting leaked last weekend as a result of encryption cracking from early pre-loaded copies from the EU PlayStation Store. Rockstar and Sony have since corrected the problem, but you can still find the full soundtrack posted elsewhere online. Rolling Stone also has a nice preview of each station for you to listen to.
