The soundtrack from the video game Grand Theft Auto III can be played on various radio stations which the player can listen to while driving in a car.
Contents
Double Clef FM
DJ: Morgan Merryweather
Genre: Classical, opera
Track list:
Summary: Hosted by Morgan Merryweather (Gerry Cosgrove), Double Cleff FM plays a selection of popular sequences from various classical operas. In the game, Double Cleff FM is the favorite radio station of the Leone Mafia Family. Morgan Merryweather is a stereotype of a pompous classical music aficionado, interspersing the tracks with references to his refined lifestyle. His cultural references, however, are often incorrect. For instance, he at one point likens a piece of music to "Fellini's Lolita." Lolita was written by Vladimir Nabokov, and adapted for film once by Stanley Kubrick and again by Adrian Lyne. Federico Fellini never turned the book into a film. Moreover, Merryweather notes that he spent a summer "reading Proust in the original Italian". Marcel Proust wrote in French, not Italian.
Flashback 95.6 FM
DJ: Toni
Genre: 1980s Pop music (synthpop), dance-rock
Track list:
Summary: Flashback 95.6 plays 1980s pop music, and is hosted by "Toni" (Maria Chambers). It is aimed at people who are "stuck in the 80s" and, between songs, Toni reminisces about her hedonistic lifestyle during that time. Toni is also a DJ in two of GTAIII's prequels, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, both of which are set in the 1980s. The tracks on Flashback 95.6 are all taken from the soundtrack of the 1983 gangster film Scarface and all composed by Giorgio Moroder. Flashback is another of the Colombian Cartel's favorite radio stations.
Game Radio FM
DJ: DJ Stretch Armstrong and Lord Sear
Genre: Underground hip hop, Midwest hip hop, East Coast hip hop, rap music
Track list:
Summary: Game Radio FM provides the radio of Liberty City with hip hop featuring many lesser-known real-life artists and MCs signed to the Game Recordings label. The station is hosted by DJ Stretch Armstrong and Lord Sear as themselves. Game Radio FM is one of the two favorite stations of the Southside Hoods in the game. The instrumental "Scary Movies" which can be heard at the beginning of the radio loop, was produced by Red Spyda for Eminem and Royce da 5'9" (Bad Meets Evil).
Head Radio
DJ: Michael Hunt
Genre: Rock (soft rock), adult contemporary, pop music
Track list:
Summary: Soft rock and adult contemporary radio station hosted by DJ "Michael Hunt" (Russ Mottla), and owned by Love Media (a fictional media company in the GTA world, parody of Clear Channel Communications). Head Radio is the Diablos gang's favorite radio station. This is the third appearance of a Head Radio station in a GTA game. To commemorate the tenth anniversary of the release of GTA III, Rockstar Games has released the Head Radio and Lips 106 soundtrack on iTunes.
K-Jah Radio
DJ: Horace "the Pacifist" Walsh
Genre: Dub, reggae
Track list:
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. All tracks played on the station are from the Scientist album Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires. The frequency for the station, as mentioned by some between-song commercials, is 103.7. It is also one of the few stations not owned by "Love Media", the fictional corporation owned by Donald Love, as can be seen from Horace's line "Mi have no love fi Donald Love, mon."
K-Jah's West Coast affiliate and sister station is named K-JAH Radio West, as seen in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
Lips 106
DJ: Andee
Genre: Pop music (synthpop, dream pop)
Track list:
Summary: Hosted by "Andee" (Shelley Miller), Lips 106 plays pop music. Lips is the Yakuza's favorite radio station. The song "Grand Theft Auto" by Da Shootaz was originally featured in the soundtrack of the first Grand Theft Auto game, where it can be heard on the fictional N-CT FM radio station. To commemorate the tenth anniversary of the release of GTA III, Rockstar Games has released the Head Radio and Lips 106 soundtrack on iTunes.
MSX FM
DJ: MC Codebreaker and DJ Timecode
Genre: Drum and bass (techstep, darkstep)
Track list:
Summary: MC'd by MC Codebreaker and mixed by DJ Timecode, MSX FM is a station that plays drum and bass music and has no commercials. The station is based on a pirate radio theme which broadcasts illegally across Liberty City. The station's FM frequency is mentioned to be 101.1, an allusion to the 2001 Moving Shadow mix CD mixed by Timecode named "Moving Shadow 01.1". The tracks featured on MSX FM are a subset of those on 01.1. MSX FM is the second favorite station of the Southside Hoods. It should also be noted that the game is set in the year 2001 while the station has the frequency 101.1, while it has the suffix "98" in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, which takes place in 1998.
Rise FM
DJ: Andre The Accelerator
Genre: Trance, rave
Track list:
Summary: Hosted by "Andre The Accelerator" (voiced by "Andre") and plays four to the floor style electronic music. The playlist in the game is presented as a continuous liveset 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, and coincidentally, a trance, rave, and EDM radio station in Hungary as well. However, neither are connected to the GTA version.
Chatterbox FM
Hosted and produced by Lazlow (who also co-wrote the script along with Dan Houser), Chatterbox FM 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 his take on the situation.
The station features two long interviews with fictional Liberty City characters. The first is with Fernando Martínez – a recurring character in the Grand Theft Auto – who is the founder of 'Fernando's New Beginnings', which is billed as a sort of revolutionary new "miracle" therapy designed to save struggling marriages. Martinez speaks in a heavily exaggerated Spanish accent; when pressed about his heritage, he replies that he is "Latin." Martinez spends the length of the interview deflecting any deep review of his services. At the end of his interview, however, it is revealed that his therapeutic "techniques" are merely a thinly veiled excuse for the husband to commit adultery when it suits him. Martinez asserts that whenever a man is tired of his wife, he should cheat on her, thereby reducing the anxiety he feels towards his wife, and thus "saving" the marriage. This results in Lazlow throwing Fernando out the studio, accusing him of being "just a cheap pimp from upstate."
The second interview is with the pacifist, organic food-eating martial artist Reed Tucker, whom Lazlow constantly makes fun of. Towards the end of the interview, tired of being mocked, Reed attempts to karate chop the studio's desk "into two half desks", claiming he "already envisioned" it. After failing miserably, Lazlow starts mocking him by mimicking his voice and making comments about him ("I bruise easily, don't throw any tofu or bean curds at me").
Several calls reference elements of the game's storyline. Maria Latore calls regarding relationship troubles with her boyfriend's, and Toni Cipriani calls complaining about his mother's failure to treat him like a real man. Maria complains that her boyfriend: "He don't talk much." There are also five-second image promos with Donald Love (a character that gives missions to the player) saying, "You're listening to a Love Media station. Enjoy."
Some calls appear to reference each other; one caller who indicates he is fond of eating animals of any kind says he sometimes finds pigeons that have notes attached, commenting that 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 within III who are against the use of telephones, declares that the group uses carrier pigeons in the place of telephones, but that they keep going missing, implying that the first caller is eating these pigeons. Lazlow also points out the ironic fact that this anti-phone group had to use a phone to reach the station.
Other callers include an English man calling to tell Lazlow that he needs a nanny to spank him (who also calls into Vice City station K-Chat); a man calling in regard to taxes (which he pronounces "Texas"); a nudist who hates clothes (this same caller is also featured in the prequel game Vice City as a debate participant, on VCPR, nudist Barry Starks). One caller talks about turnips, to which Lazlow tells him that "This isn't 'Gardening with Maurice.'" That show would later be featured on WCTR, a talk radio station in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004).
Finally, a war-veteran caller mentions fighting in the Australian-American War. Lazlow asks what the war is, and that he's never heard of it, which angers the veteran as he doesn't think Lazlow knows his history. This becomes a running gag in later GTA games, as commercials for Ammu-Nation (a gun store) in Vice City and San Andreas reference certain guns being used when "we whooped Australia's ass."
Lazlow off-offhandedly mentions that he is only hosting Chatterbox because he "got kicked off the rock station." In the next game in the series, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which is set 15 years previously, he is the host of the radio station "V-Rock". This station is referenced again in Grand Theft Auto IV on the WKTT radio station, mentioning that Chatterbox has become defunct by 2007 and that Lazlow is attempting a new radio show called Integrity 2.0.
The 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, Laura Bykowski, A.M. Watson, 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.
Non Selectable Radio Stations
There are also a few radio stations that can be seen advertised on billboards around Liberty City. However, these are not available for selection at any time during the game and have no songs or DJ's associated with them. These four stations are Liberty FM Q 120.5, Radio Active, WLLC The Zone 34.9, and Liberty Soul FM. It isn't clear whether these radio stations were originally to be 'real' stations but were dropped out during the production of the game, or if they were simply designed to sit alongside the other fictional brands advertised in the game.
Another possible non-selectable station is what has been referred to as Orbit FM. However, close inspection of the ad (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 or was a radio station.