Grand Theft Auto III soundtrack

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The soundtrack of the game Grand Theft Auto III is popular not only with fans of the game, but also with lovers of mid- to late-1990s music. In the game, music is played on various "radio stations" which the player can listen to after a car has been acquired. Most radio stations play a mixture of music, DJ chat, and spoof advertising. The stations each reflect one style of music intended to evoke a certain atmosphere.

Although many of the songs that appear in the game were written specially for the soundtrack (or in some cases for the soundtracks of previous games in the series), a large amount of tracks were contributions by "real" artists. Craig Conner and Stuart Ross created the original tracks, often with vocals and performances by other musicians. Virtually none of the contributing "real" artists were particularly well-known at the time, and appearing on such a popular video game was no doubt greatly advantageous to their careers.

Where music has been created by Conner and Ross, a fake band is credited to the song, and often the name of the band or the music itself is a parody of a well-known artist's style. For example, the "Scatwerk" song on Head Radio is an obvious parody of the German band Kraftwerk.

Other than the radio stations, the only other occurrence of music in the entire game is within the game's intro and credit sequences, which play to very jazzy/bluesy piano tracks. As mentioned, the only time a player can hear the radio is when the protagonist hijacks a car (or in the Audio section of the pause menu). The station that will be playing when the player gets in is fairly random (and can be changed), but there are certain factors that will make the "choice" lean certain ways, such as the area the car is in, the type of car, and if it is a gang's signature car. All of the gangs in the game have favored radio stations.

Contents 1 Music stations 1.1 Head Radio 1.2 Double Clef FM 1.3 K-Jah 1.4 Rise FM 1.5 Lips 106 1.6 Game Radio FM 1.7 MSX FM 1.8 Flashback 95.6 2 Talk Stations 2.1 Chatterbox FM 3 Commercials 4 Trivia 4.1 Non selectable stations 4.2 Real-Life 5 Notes 6 External links 6.1 General 6.2 Spoof sites by Rockstar 6.3 Lyrics & scripts 6.4 Commentary

[edit] Music stations

[edit] Head Radio

DJ: Michael Hunt
Genre: Soft Rock, Adult Contemporary
Tracklist:^[1]

• Dil-Don't — Stripe Summer^[2]
• Whatever — Good Thing^[3]
• Craig Gray — Fade Away^[4]
• Conor & Jay — Change^[5]
• Frankie Fame — See Through You^[6]
• Scatwerk — Electronic Go Go^[7]
• Dezma — Life Is But A Mere Supply ^[8]

Summary: Soft rock and adult contemporary radio station hosted by "Michael Hunt" (Russ Mottla), and is owned by Love Media, a parody of Clear Channel Communications. Head Radio is the Diablos gang's favorite radio station.

See also: GTA:LCS rendition

[edit] Double Clef FM

DJ: Morgan Merryweather
Genre: Classical, Opera
Tracklist:^[9]

• Non piu andrai farfallone amoroso from Le Nozze di Figaro ^[10]
• Chi mi frena in tal momento from Lucia di Lammermoor ^[11]
• Libiamo ne'lieti calici from La traviata ^[12]
• Finch'han del vino from Don Giovanni ^[13]
• O mio babbino caro from Gianni Schicchi ^[14] This song is only featured in the original, non-double pack, non-greatest hits, Playstation 2 version. For unknown reasons, it was removed and replaced with a commercial in all of the XBox and PC versions along with all of the subsequent Playstation 2 versions.
• La Donna è mobile from Rigoletto ^[15]

Summary: Hosted by the decidedly creepy "Morgan Merryweather" (Gerry Cosgrove), Double Clef FM plays a selection of popular sequences from various classical operas. The station may be based on WQXR-FM. In the game, Double Clef FM is the favorite radio station of the Leone Mafia Family.

See also: GTA:LCS rendition

[edit] K-Jah

DJ: Horace "the Pacifist" Walsh
Genre: Reggae
Tracklist:^[16]

• Herman Stephens - Dance of the Vampires
• Herman Stephens - Your Teeth in My Neck
• Herman Stephens - The Corpse Rises
• Herman Stephens - The Mummy's Shroud
• Herman Stephens - Plague of Zombies

Summary: Hosted by Horace "the Pacifist" Walsh (Herman Stephens). K-Jah is the favorite station of the Yardies gang, and plays dub reggae music with interspersed bits of chatter from the DJ. The frequency for the station, as mentioned by some between-song commercials, is 103.

K-Jah's west coast affiliate is named K-JAH Radio West, as seen in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

See also: GTA:LCS rendition

[edit] Rise FM

DJ: Andre The Accelerator
Genre: Trance music
Tracklist:^[17]

• Slyder — Neo (The One)
• Slyder — Score (Original Mix)
• Chris Walsh & Dave Beran — Shake (Revolt Clogrock Remix)
• Shiver — Deep Time
• R.R.D.S. — Innerbattle

Summary: Hosted by "Andre The Accelerator" (voiced by "Andre") and plays four to the floor style electronic dance music. The playlist in the game is presented as a continuous DJ mix which is being played and broadcast live from a nightclub called the Planetarium. This station does not feature any commercials. Rise FM is one of the Colombian Cartel's favorite stations. Rise FM is also the name of a real-life internet radio station which is owned and run by Denmark based Rise Future Media. However, it is in no way connected to the GTA version.

See also: GTA:LCS rendition

[edit] Lips 106

DJ: Andee
Genre: Pop music
Tracklist:^[18]

• Fatamarse — Bump To The Music ^[19]
• Marydancin — Wash Him Off ^[20]
• April's in Paris — Feels Like I Just Can't Take No More ^[21]
• Lucy — Forever ^[22]
• Boyz 2 Girls — Pray It Goes Ok? ^[23]
• Da Shootaz — Grand Theft Auto ^[24]
• Funky BJs — Rubber Tip ^[25]

Summary: Hosted by "Andee" (Shelley Miller), Lips 106 plays modern pop music. Lips is the Yakuza's favorite radio station. The name and logo are a spoof of the Top-40-formated stations that carry the "Kiss" moniker and Central Scotland's Beat 106.

See also: GTA:LCS rendition

[edit] Game Radio FM

DJ: Stretch Armstrong and Lord Sear
Genre: Midwest hip hop, East Coast hip hop
Tracklist:^[26]

• Reef — Scary Movies (Instrumental) ^[27]
• Royce Da 5'9" — We're Live (Danger)
• Nature — Nature Freestyle
• JoJo Pellegrino - JoJo Pellegrino Freestyle
• Royce Da 5'9 (Feat. Pretty Ugly) - Spit Game
• Black Rob - By A Stranger
• Royce Da 5'9" - I'm The King
• Rush — Instrumental Bed 1 ^[27]
• Rush — Instrumental Bed 2 ^[27]
• Agallah (Feat. Sean Price) - Rising to the Top

Summary: Game Radio FM provides the radio of Liberty City with hip-hop featuring many lesser-known real-life artists and MCs. The station is hosted by Stretch Armstrong and Lord Sear as themselves. Game Radio FM is one of the favorite stations of the Southside Hoods in the game.

[edit] MSX FM

DJ: MC Codebreaker and DJ Timecode
Genre: Drum and Bass
Tracklist:^[28]

• Calyx — Quagmire ^[29]
• Rascal and Klone — Get Wild ^[30]
• Ryme Tyme — Judgement Day ^[31]
• Omni Trio — First Contact ^[32]
• Aquasky — Spectre ^[33]
• [[Rascal and Klone — Winner Takes All ^[34]
• Cause 4 Concern — Spasm ^[35]
• D Kay — Monolith ^[36]

Summary: Rapped by MC Codebreaker and mixed by DJ Timecode, MSX FM is a station that plays very fast drum and bass music and has no commercials. The station's FM frequency is mentioned to be 101.1, an allusion to the electronic sound track released in 2001 mixed by Timecode named "Moving Shadow 01.1". MSX FM is the second favourite station of the Southside Hoods.

See also: GTA:LCS rendition

[edit] Flashback 95.6

DJ: Toni
Genre: 1980s Pop music
Tracklist:^[37]

• Paul Engemann — Push It To The Limit
• Debbie Harry — Rush Rush
• Amy Holland — She's On Fire
• Elizabeth Daily — Shake It Up
• Elizabeth Daily — I'm Hot Tonight

Summary: Flashback 95.6 plays 1980s pop music, and is hosted by a much older "Toni" (Maria Chambers) than when she was last heard on a radio station in GTA III's sequel, Vice City. The station's name is a clever play on the fact that partygirl Toni is still broadcasting the hits from the 1980s when she was DJ'ing for Flash. An interesting point about the tracks on Flashback 95.6 is that they are all from the soundtrack of the popular 1983 gangster film Scarface. Incidentally, Flashback is another of the Colombian Cartel's favorite radio station.

See also: GTA:LCS rendition

[edit] Talk Stations

[edit] Chatterbox FM

Hosted and produced by Lazlow (who also co-wrote the script along with Dan Houser), is the only radio station in the game that does not feature music. Much like the talk radio stations in the real world, Chatterbox features a format in which listeners call in with opinions, concerns, and complaints, and the host responds with their take on the situation. The station also features two long interviews with fictional Liberty City characters — the pacifist, organic food-eating martial artist "Reed Tucker", and the "cheap pimp from upstate", Fernando Martinez (a future recurring character in the GTA series, with a lot of experience in and out of radio). Chatterbox FM is the Triad's favorite radio station.

This being Grand Theft Auto, the callers and calls are naturally humorous, and include such jokes as a man calling to tell Lazlow that he needs a nanny to spank him (a call so popular it would spawn a version about witches in Vice City and even its own commercial in San Andreas), a man calling in regard to taxes (which he pronounces like "Texas"), Toni Cipriani calling with an embarrassing story about his mother, a man who hates clothes ("Does a lion wear clothes? And the lion is the king of the jungle!"), and Maria Latore/LaTorra calling regarding relationship troubles with her boyfriend, the unnamed main character (in GTA:SA he is referred to as "Claude" and is also mute) Maria on Claude: "He don't talk much".

One caller calls in to talk about turnips. Lazlow tells this caller that "This isn't 'Gardening with Maurice'." ("Gardening with Maurice" would be featured on WCTR, a talk radio station in San Andreas.)

One of the calls is from a SPANK-head, referring to the increasingly popular leisure drug prevalent in the game. He refers to Lazlow as a pansy and goes on about conspiracies and government brainwashing involving toothpaste.

A caller who indicates he is fond of eating animals of any kind says he sometimes find pigeons that have notes attached, commenting "it's like a fortune cookie with wings". Another caller, a woman from "Citizens Raging Against Phones" (C.R.A.P.), a fictional pressure group with GTA3 against the use of telephones, declares that the group uses carrier pigeons in the place of telephones, but that they keep going missing, making it evident that the first caller is, in fact, eating these pigeons. In Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, the predecessor to C.R.A.P. was Citizens United Negating Technology, and its caller to Chatterbox warns that they will first shut off "the internet, then we're going after the phones."

Reed Tucker is a guest on Chatterbox. It is said by both Lazlow and Reed that he has a food market ("Now and Zen") in Trenton, but none exists in the game. After the Reed Tucker conversation a caller yells at the end of the call "free Kevin!", reference to infamous computer hacker Kevin Mitnick. Reed also calls into the radio in San Andreas, making a comment about masticating that the show's host interprets as masturbation due to Reed's lisp.

The replies Lazlow gives to his callers are usually comically caustic and opinionated. A common reply to nonsense callers is "Well I'm sure that's a lesson to us all." An interesting point is that in this game, Lazlow off-handedly mentions that he is only hosting Chatterbox because he "got kicked off the rock station", and this is proved to be entirely true in the next game in the series, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City as he is the host of the radio station "V-Rock". He is also heard on Grand Theft Auto San Andreas on WCTR later on as well as being the intern to Couzin Ed on V-Rock in the Vice City prequel Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories. When he first takes the Chatterbox job in 1998, he is referred to as the host "run out of both Vice City and San Andreas."

The many guests on the station were voiced by: Lucien Jones,[Karin Bykowski, Hank Stewart, Abbi Davis, Mellowvision.com, Paul Maloney, bernieS, Frank Fava, Kit Halsted, Joe Casalino, Dan Houser, Jay Crutcher, Frank Chavez, DJ Rush, A.M. Watson, Laura Bykowski, Navid Khonsari, Sherry Wohglmuth,Porkchop, Renaud Sebbane, Kyle Maclachlan, Sabby, Kim Schaefer, Debi Mazar, Nick Mandelos, David Connell, Reed Tucker, Jennifer Kolbe, Ami Plasse, Keith Broadus, Cameo Carlson, JD Leeds and Michael Madsen.

See also: LCFR

[edit] Commercials

The myriad commercials are written by Dan Houser and Lazlow (the latter of whom also produced them). They are fairly convincing as real adverts as they adhere to many typical marketing clichés and tricks. Several adverts mention telephone numbers and official websites. Rockstar actually created these websites, and although many links eventually lead back to the Rockstar site, some are more detailed. The Petsovernight.com website, for example, displays pictures of animals and promises "If it's got a central nervous system, we've got it ready to go in a box to your house", tying in with the humor of the commercials.

Some examples of commercials within the game are:

• Dormatron - An invention that burns calories while sleeping — by moving the limbs strapped to the device while the owner sleeps. Exactly how the subject is strapped in is never explained but is implied as a form of bondage in Liberty City Stories. Parodies 'miracle' weight-loss products that are either ineffective or repackaged versions of proven methods. Has its own website.
• Equanox' - (often incorrectly spelled 'Equinox') Alertness pills from Zaibatsu Pharmaceuticals, with a long and concerning list of side-effects. Parodying No-Doz, as well as dangerous pharmaceuticals. Zaibatsu, meaning "conglomerate", is a commonly used word in the GTA series, though it would oddly be replaced by Maibatsu in subsequent games.
• Eris Running Shoes - Parodies the controversy over Nike's controversial outsourcing and labor practices. This sneaker company employs children ("It's fun! We get to play with knives!", "Yesterday, I made a dollar!" "My friend Joey sewed his hands together!"). Eris appears in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas as one of the clothing brands, and are promoting their "Rampage" line.
• Fernando's New Beginnings - "A revolutionary new way to save your marriage," explained further during Fernando's stint on Chatterbox FM.
• Liberty City Survivor - A reality show with "20 recently paroled guys...equipped with grenade launchers and flamethrowers". They have to hunt each other down until only one man is left standing. Parodying reality television, especially the late 90's trend towards more degrading formulas such as Fear Factor. Liberty City Survivor is also a reference to a promised-but-cancelled multiplayer mode in GTAIII. However, "Liberty City Survivor" would come to frutition as the multiplayer mode in Liberty City Stories. The voiceover is from Jeff Berlin.
• Maibatsu Monstrosity - A sports utility vehicle notable for its size and low gas mileage. Rhymes with zaibatsu, apparently to evoke images of a large, hegemonistic corporation. The Liberty Tree says in its newspaper that there were problems with the prototype in the 90s with a few injured persons. Parodies the elephantine sports utility vehicles that were commonplace on American roads in the 2000s. The adverts are voiced by Laura Bykowski (soccer mom), Shelley Miller (voiceover) and probably Craig Olivo (marketing manager).
• Petsovernight.com - A dot com that ships its customers live animals (including exotics), anywhere in the country. A parody of some of the decidedly ridiculous dot-com enterprises at the time of the game's release. "Delivering little bundles of love.. in a box.. directly to your door."
• Pogo the Monkey - A platform action game where players play as a monkey with a banana cannon who attacks scientists and steals gems. The radio adverts make particular the parody of the merchandising blitz surrounding popular platforming games with "mutated" protagonists such as Crash Bandicoot as well as the games in general. A fake arcade version of Pogo the Monkey can be found in several places in Vice City.
• Rakin & Ponzer - Urges listeners to sue their boss and the first of a recurring ad theme encouraging insurance fraud.
• The House of Tomorrow - A specialist electronics retailer promoting high-tech items such as 3D virtual reality helmets of questionable usefullness as vital in the digital era, a parody of such real life retailers as The Sharper Image.

The adverts are voiced by: Stephanie Roy, Gerry Cosgrove, Sean Lynch, Lazlow, Alex Anthony, Jonathan Hanst, Chris Silvestro, Jeff Berlin, Shelley Miller, Ron Reeve, Maria Chambers, Alana Silvestro, Alice Saltzman, Dan Houser, Frank Chavez, Craig Olivo and Laura Bykowski.

[edit] Trivia

[edit] Non selectable stations

There are several stations that can be seen advertised on billboards throughout Liberty City, however these are not available for selection at any time during the game and have no songs or DJs associated with them. They are Liberty FM, WLLC ‘The Zone’ and Liberty Soul FM. It is not clear whether these stations were originally intended to be ‘real’ stations but dropped during development, or if they were simply designed to sit alongside other fake brands advertised in the game.

Another possible non-selectable station is what has been referred to as Orbit FM. However, close inspection of the advert (both in the game and in the instruction manual) shows that the correct name is OR-Bit. There is no ‘FM’ and no evidence that it is a radio station.

[edit] Real-Life

On Flashback FM, Toni mentions that she slept with a band on a tour bus, but the band's name is cut out. When viewing the Flashback FM section on the GTAIII website, it is revealed that the band is Duran Duran, and its name was likely cut out in-game so as to avoid copyright infringement.

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

[edit] General

• Official Rockstar Games website
• Official Allegro Corporation website
• Official Mellowvision website

[edit] Spoof sites by Rockstar

• Love Media
• PetsOvernight.com
• Pogo the Monkey
• Dormatron
• Lips 106

[edit] Lyrics & scripts

• GameFAQs on Grand Theft Auto III; contains scripts and song lyrics from all GTAIII radio stations.

[edit] Commentary

• An IGN article about the sounds in the game, with full track listing.

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