A series of articles in collaboration with In This Thread highlighting some of the finest music threads from their avid group of music lovers - Props to ITT member Ben Scheepers for the thread idea!
Whether your daily drive is five minutes or fifty minutes - at some point or another everybody experiences that golden occasion of parking up at home and defiantly waiting out whatever seductive banger may still be playing out of their car stereo. Sometimes the tune is simply too good to shut off.
This being said… I don’t drive. (Failed my test twice twice: Trust me, “causing gridlock” is something to probably avoid on test day.)
This does however lead us neatly onto the Grand Theft Auto video game franchise. Remember four lines back when I mentioned listening to music in a car that I don’t actually own? The only time I get to experience this bizarre form of musical ecstasy is when I’m driving around on a video game; ironically causing far worse traffic violations than the aforementioned gridlock. The GTA franchise, for all its violent shortcomings in the eyes of disgruntled conservative parents, has a fucking amazing soundtrack. A soundtrack that can only be accessed through the carefully curated radio stations found within whatever car you have managed to buy, steal or simply… well, steal. Seriously, who hasn’t been mid-bank robbery: driving away from a dozen cops and decided just to sack off the mission, park under a bridge, and listen to the rest of Stardust’s: Music Sounds Better With You? Even once I had completed the game, my 15 year old self would just drive round San Andreas for hours listening to Bounce FM.
I probably do need to get a real car…
BUT, there isn’t a single soul alive who has played this game and doesn’t then leave with a strong, strong opinion on their favourite GTA radio station. AND, people are really serious about this shit… A large chunk of the GTA V soundtrack has been issued on six disc vinyl boxset (for the insane price of £250+). Across all 5 flagship games, the carefully selected tracks of each station have masterfully coloured in the visual worlds of Liberty City, San Andreas and Vice City. Its landscapes, its characters and the narratives that drive the individual stories all make better sense when situated within the sonic identities of West Coast Radio or Radio X. Who doesn’t love driving round Franklin’s hood listening to Eazy-E and Westside Connection, right? With the latest instalment in the franchise packing heat with respect to its radio curators: Gilles Peterson (Worldwide FM) and Flying Lotus (FlyLo FM) being the most notable, we thought it apt to give a full rundown and what we considered the most important songs found within the franchise.
With inspiration coming from the ITT Facebook page, here are Melodic Distraction‘s favourite GTA songs so far!