Rockstar Games have released an extended gameplay trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI, the very long-awaited follow-up to the multi-billion dollar smash hit GTA V. People have waited years for this: it's a comeback akin to Massive Attack, Boards Of Canada or that terrible album that Guns 'n' Roses did once.
Game bros everywhere must be wetting their y-fronts over this news. That or they're fuming in their skinny jeans because the new game has the audacity to feature a female character with agency. I bet loads of them call it 'woke' even though they've no idea what the word means because they only understand words of less than one syllable.
Where was I? Oh yes. GTA VI. I should say that this is not a gaming blog. Yes I own a PS4 and two PS1s and an Atari and a Commodore and an old Spectrum and a very dog-eared Cluedo with several pieces missing, but honestly I don't really know my Minecraft from my Minesweeper. So this is not a blog post about gaming.
What I am interested in is electronic music. The GTA series has had in-game radio stations since its debut in 1997. They started off with music made by the game developers themselves, which sounds potentially terrible, but they made some brilliantly atmospheric tunes. Snappy techno rollers, a bit of piano house, and a spacey electro highlight called Automatic Transmission by Meme Traders. Oh the nostalgia.
By the time GTA V came about, there was a whole ecosystem of radio stations. There were shock jocks, country hicks, and proper electronic music artists like Flying Lotus and Soulwax curating their own playlists. Listen long enough and you would have heard tracks by Moodymann, Joy Orbison, Jamie Lidell, Carl Craig as The Paperclip People, The Gaslamp Killer, Four Tet, !!! (Chk Chk Chk) and SBTRKT. And DāM-FunK. And Lee 'Scratch' Perry for goodness sake.
It wasn't just the radio stations. You know the music that plays when you get a three-star wanted level, that urgent electronica that slightly unsettles you as you escape the trigger-happy yet hapless police? Or that airy, uplifting loop that floats in whenever you're flying an aircraft way above Mount Chiliad? That music's by ambient royalty Tangerine Dream.
With all that in mind, my expectations for GTA VI are through the roof. And by that, I mean a really high roof that you get on a building, not a low roof like the sun one you get on a car. From what I can spot so far, we have the return of !!! (Chk Chk Chk), there's a bit of Depeche Mode, and there are bleepy headnodders like Elderbrook's Inner Light (previously featured on a FIFA soundtrack). Sounds promising. But there's also Phil Collins and Cliff Richard, so I also want to blast off my ears with a boopy gun.
I would be brilliant as a GTA main character, by the way. I've not done loads of armed robberies or carjackings or anything, but I do hang around on street corners looking tough and insulting passers-by. I think it's the clogs that do it. People are afraid of my gangster clogs. They're in my gang colours (pink).
Let's see what happens. About the new soundtrack, I mean, not about me being the new Trevor. I'm all ears for GTA VI.
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