Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Soundtrack

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Soundtrack

The soundtrack of the computer and video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which is set in 1992 in the fictional U.S. West Coast state of San Andreas, required that the game's radio stations reflect the music tastes of the time and area, in addition to covering current events in the state of San Andreas, and even weather forecasts. Together with several pieces of early-1990s music, the soundtrack also included songs from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Many of the songs interpolate or sample other songs which feature in this or other GTA titles, such as Ice Cube's "Check Yo Self", which samples "The Message", which was featured in Vice City or "Weekend" which appears in its original form on Paradise FM in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories.

Primarily, the player hears the radio when the protagonist acquires a vehicle. The player is also given the option of listening to the radio stations "out of game" by calling up the game's Audio Options. The station that will be playing when the player gets into a vehicle is determined by several factors, and players can change it or switch it off as desired (or set the game so the last station heard by the player will be playing when a new vehicle is obtained). The only vehicles in which the player cannot access the radio are the emergency and police vehicles (which use the police scanner), tractors, bicycles, forklifts, the Bandito sandrail, and certain boats. Radio stations, or some of the songs featured on them, can also be heard in the background in certain locations, such as bars, clothing stores, clubs, casinos, and safehouse wardrobes. The Xbox and PC versions of the game allow the player to create their own custom radio stations with user imported tracks. However, unlike previous GTA titles, which also offered this feature, San Andreas can place commercials between tracks.

The game offers a few firsts for its soundtrack. One change made it necessary for why the game can place commercials in between the tracks: the player now hears news breaks at certain points during game progress. The news break that plays depends on where the player is in the story. This is later used for Grand Theft Auto IV's Weasel News. Similarly (and more frequently) some DJs can also be heard announcing the arrival of weather systems such as fog and thunderstorms which occur randomly in San Andreas. Another change was that the stations were now uncensored, and unlike previous entries in the series, words like "fuck" and "shit" were used on the stations without consequence, whereas in the past, DJ's scolded callers for using such language. Finally, at certain points in the game, the game changes the scripts for all of the stations, making them dynamic. This usually occurs when a player unlocks a new major island in the game. This last change has yet to be reimplemented in later GTA games, thus making it an exclusive feature to San Andreas.

The official soundtrack, available on Interscope Records, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Official Soundtrack and the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Official Soundtrack Box Set collection were released internationally on November 23, 2004 and December 7, 2004 respectively. Michael Hunter is the composer of the theme song and incidental music.