Grand Theft Auto 5 Game Features Real Country Through “Rebel Radio”
If you need any more proof that corporate country music has become so milktoast that the backlash against its homogenized format and fashion plate stars has become an indelible and easily-identifiable element of American culture, then look no further than the recent blockbuster video game Grand Theft Auto 5 from Rockstar Games. Featured in the third-person, open world game that shattered industry sales records by earning $800 million in the first 24 hours and $1 billion in the first three days is a radio station called “Rebel Radio” that is described as playing classic Outlaw country that “reminds listeners that corporate country sucks.” The station’s tagline is “Because country has gone sissy.”
Rebel Radio is hosted by The Dancing Outlaw Jesco White, made famous from the Dancing Outlaw movie first shown on PBS, and his subsequent appearances in various documentaries, including most recently The Wild & Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. The soundtrack for Rebel Radio includes Johnny Paycheck, Waylon Jennings, Hank Thompson, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Hasil Adkins among others (see full playlist below).
Illustrating the great care for detail game makers go through these days, Rebel Radio has its own logo, and even has its own location in the game in the Grand Senora Desert in Blaine County on a hill near the Redwoods Lights Motorcross Track. 13 total minutes of Jesco White commentary are mixed in with the 11-song soundtrack to give players the feel of listening to a real radio station, and Jesco even makes an appearance in the game as a “hidden Easter Egg” doing his famous Outlaw tap dancing routine.
Grand Theft Auto 5’s use of radio stations speaks to the opening of new outlets for music as traditional radio continues to narrow formats in the face of consolidation at the hands of big corporations like Clear Channel and Cumulus. Big companies have been buying up stations all across the country, implementing and institutionalizing nationalized programming. Grand Theft Auto 5 boasts a total of 15 different radio stations players can tune into, with over 240 officially licensed songs making up the game’s entire soundtrack. The game is also the first in the series to solicit an original score.
Ivan Pavlovich, the Soundtrack Supervisor for Grand Theft Auto 5, points out that the music licensing for the game is the equivalent to 20 movie soundtracks—a tremendous investment for a video game. Other celebrity DJ’s for the game’s various channels include Bootsy Collins for an 80s funk station, Pam Grier hosting a soul station, and Kenny Loggins for the classic rock station. The soundtrack is also available for sale in multiple volumes.
Grand Theft Auto 5’s Rebel Radio Playlist:
- Ozark Mountain Daredevils – If You Wanna Get To Heaven (1973)
- Hank Thompson – I Don’t Hurt Anymore (1954)
- Johnny Paycheck – It Won’t Be Long (And I’ll Be Hating You) (1968)
- Johnny Cash – General Lee (1982)
- Willie Nelson – Whiskey River (1973)
- Jerry Reed – You Took All The Ramblin’ Out Of Me (1972)
- Charlie Feathers – Can’t Hardly Stand It (1956)
- Waylon Jennings – I Ain’t Living Long Like This (1979)
- Waylon Jennings – Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way (1975)
- C.W. McCall – Convoy (1975)
- Hasil Adkins – Get Out of My Car (1966)
September 30, 2013 @ 11:48 am
Not a gamer but this makes me smile. Because so many folks will be exposed to some good music. Once again corporate Nashville and corporate radio is becoming more and more unnecessary !
September 30, 2013 @ 12:12 pm
As Jesco would say, “it’s a family perdition”
September 30, 2013 @ 12:26 pm
There was an awesome classic country station in GTA: San Andreas, too.
http://gta.wikia.com/K_Rose
September 30, 2013 @ 12:35 pm
Lot of people dont realize that this is a very important article. People under 35 dont realize the influence video games has on our culture now. It is becoming as relevant as the influence of movies and books. Video games has made an appearance in many top TV shows like True Blood and Breaking Bad. The UFC advertises it a whole lot. People are even relating to the nerd show the Big Bang Theory cause the characters get people in touch with their inner nerd for the games they play and the tv shows they watch. Video games are also the favorite past time for soldiers over seas in the past few wars we were in. One interesting game to note to is a part in the new game “the Last of Us” when the main characters are listening to Hank Williams and having a discussion on it.
September 30, 2013 @ 1:46 pm
I agree. Exposure to country music through things like this and Breaking Bad can have a true, sizable impact because you’re reaching ears who may otherwise not be exposed to this side of culture. Rebel Radio takes it further by also forwarding the philosophy that something is wrong with country radio.
September 30, 2013 @ 12:35 pm
Wouldn’t hurt to have some more modern outlaw artists on there too. To me it sends the message that real country has to be old stuff, or the image of a cranky old man complaining about all that new music those young people listen to.
There’s a lot of good recent country that could be on that playlist too.
September 30, 2013 @ 1:51 pm
I agree, but I’m not sure if it would be fair to the game makers to even know who someone like Whitey Morgan or Hellbound Glory are. Maybe in a future video game we will see this. We just got to keep the vigil up and eventually these names will start to bust through. We’re already seeing it on some cable TV shows.
October 1, 2013 @ 7:57 pm
Actually, the developers probably chose older music because the licenses for use are typically cheaper (unless we’re talking about The Beatles or Led Zeppelin or an artist of their magnitude).
As much as I hate to be a pessimist about so many of your articles, Trigger, this one almost deserves it. While Rebel Radio definitely pokes fun at mainstream country music, it also makes fun of traditionalists as well. I’m glad that you’ve made GTA V and it’s great musical choices the subject of an article, but it’s a tad ironic that you think that it’s simply reaffirming your viewpoints. Though it’s not openly stated, at heart the Grand Theft Auto series is simply a parody of the world and its problems. Unlike most parodies, however, Rockstar paints a target on all sides as opposed to being biased for one or the other. Effectively, no one is safe here. If you actually listen to the radio station in the game, yes, the DJ mentions that modern country “ain’t country.” But he also says “Because corporate country ain’t country this is CORPORATE … Rebel Radio,” obviously making fun of people who complain about mainstream modern country music not being aware of the state of their own. He also takes other shots at traditionalists, but I can’t recall the exact wording.
Obviously, I support this article as I brought up GTA V and this radio station in another article a few days ago. It’s also the only radio station that I listen to when I play the game (so it only took a little while for me to figure out that there is unfortunately a severly limited selection of songs).
October 1, 2013 @ 8:35 pm
Acca,
Your take on my stance on this seems to be based more on assumption than what I said.
What is said was:
“If you need any more proof that corporate country music has become so milktoast that the backlash against its homogenized format and fashion plate stars
has become an indelible and easily-identifiable element of American culture, then look no further than the recent blockbuster video game Grand Theft Auto 5…”
In other words, what I’m saying here is that by the makers of the game deciding that the backlash against corporate radio is saturated enough in culture that putting together a radio station based off of the sentiment in a video game proves that this is something players can relate to and find intuitive. I agree that in some respects, the makers are probably poking fun at the idea and Jesco White by proxy, but I’m completely fine with that. They portray a caricaturish take on the position, because it is a video game meant to entertain. Nonetheless, the fact that this sentiment has made its way into a popular video game speaks to its saturation in culture.
October 2, 2013 @ 3:10 pm
I understand. Again, I didn’t mean to seem that I disagree with your claims, I’m just not a strict traditionalist so it keeps me from falling in line 100% with the cause. That said, I still support this site and your work. Thanks for clarifying.
September 30, 2013 @ 12:46 pm
Correction that it should be Hank Snow and not Hank Thompson
September 30, 2013 @ 1:49 pm
Hank Snow sang “I Don’t Hurt Anymore” too, but I believe the one that showed up in the game was the Hank Thompson version. That is how they have it listed in the official playlist and soundtrack.
September 30, 2013 @ 1:12 pm
Another great example I thought was the soundtrack in the game Fallout.
http://www.amazon.com/Songs-From-Mojave-Wasteland-Fallout/dp/B004Q3IP4U/ref=sr_1_3?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&sr=1-3&keywords=fallout+soundtrack
featuring old cowboy songs from Gene Autry, Tex Ritter, Johnny Horton, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Sons of the Pioneers.
September 30, 2013 @ 7:16 pm
Cool article! Big fan of GTA series and “real” country music. Very broad variety of tunes featured in these games. I loved KRose fm from San Andreas and Rebel Radio with tunes like the appropriately chosen “Ain’t Living Long Like This” makes for a good time. It would be hard to get in the mood for a drive-by while Luke Bryan or Kenny Chesney are blaring in your ears! Lol. It’s about time Waylon gets some love on a gta radio station.
October 1, 2013 @ 3:09 am
redneck rampage had a good soundtrack too, mojo nixon, the beat farmers, and Rev horton heat. I think the game wet had a psychobilly-tarantino-esque soundtrack too.
October 1, 2013 @ 6:22 pm
When I first heard the station in game I cracked a big smile. One of the best parts is the dj making serious fun if main stream country between songs.
October 5, 2013 @ 4:48 pm
I usually listen to this and Vinewood Radio (where they play garage, surf, heavy psych, rock).
October 28, 2013 @ 6:40 pm
As a fan of GTA who wasn’t a big fan of country before playing the latest game, Rebel Radio definitely made me realize just how much good music I’d been missing.
But you missed something even better. The game has another radio station, Blaine County Talk Radio, and one of the shows on there is a cooking show hosted by a parody of Paula Deen. One of her guests is one Samantha Muldoon, who, in the fourth game, was a flaky pop singer in the vein of Madonna. By GTA V, however, she’s gone country, and the result is… well, just listen here (fast forward to about the 20-minute mark):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9HxCFP73SM
It’s a giant middle finger at everything that country music has become, all the pandering BS that made me write it off for so long, and it is both hysterical and awesome.
December 13, 2015 @ 9:13 pm
I am a gta fan and mostly listed to the channel x the punk channel and Rock radio but I have been listing to rebel radio and now have all its songs on my phone with out gta I would of never listened to this I still don’t like now country tho.
November 4, 2016 @ 12:58 am
Hello from Turkiye.
I love Country music and Turkish Country music.
Ibrahim Tatlises,George Strait …
October 13, 2018 @ 9:33 pm
I agree with a lot of y’all honestly. To be honest with you, I never grew up in a country music setting and if I did hear some country songs it was either a popular one from back in the day or it was because I was in a public store. I had at one point worked at a lawn company where I met a lot of people who were way older than me. There was only one lady there aside from me.They were all in there 50s or 60s except one dude who was bout maybe in his late 30s. But point is, I definently enjoyed working there and the guys kept the radio station on a country station where older songs were played and it was a peaceful environment. I mention this because when I worked there that’s when I decided to try country music out in my truck and I would never regret doing that. Listening to country music brought out a side that I couldn’t explain in words. Like ya know when your like “I’m feeling hype. I gotta play some Rae Shremmurd or DJ Khaled” ya know modern music. But listening to country music was like “Wow. This is the best relaxing music I had ever heard” and I was darn proud of it. I feel that most black people assume that just because they are black mean that they can’t listen to country music and I’ll tell you right now as a black women, country music is down there better than the pop stations or modern hype music like DJ Khaled, Justin Bieber, DJ Snake, Khalid, Ariana Grande, etc. I would turn to country music Any day. It reminds me of the older times ya know. But then when recently I played GTA V, I listened to the Rebel Radio. I listened to it before millions of times it’s just that this time I actually put in the brain to listen to what the song was saying or actually pay attention to who the song was sang by. It’s funny because they play the same 10-15 songs on that station and each one above listed in this article I love them all. My favorite song is “Convoy” by C.W. McCall. I be singing along with the song when it comes on. *”Come on join our Convoy, ain’t nothing gone get our way. We gone roll this truckin convoy cross the U.S.A. convoyyy”* hmm. Idk why I wrote that on here….but anyhow I listened to them all and still do haha. There was another song I realized they forgot to mention on the list was a song called “D.I.V.O.R.C.E” which she sings about obviously divorce and when it ends haha I love her vocals. Their soothing and she gets her point across. There are some other songs they forgot to mention on here but that was the only one that popped in my head immediately. Anyhow my point is that everyone has sterotypes of everything but why do we have to follow them. It makes no logical sense. As a human before the day I die, I want to learn about as many cultures and music as I can. And for y’all country listeners that have a friend who says country sounds terrible they clearly haven’t been truly exposed to it. I decided to expose myself to country music on my own time for the first time in my truck on the radio station. Like I said this is not my first time hearing country music. I’ve heard it ever since I was a kid but they were always famous country singers. Now I listen to all and any country singer I could hear about. I was 18 at the time which that was only a good 5 months ago. I’m 19 now as I just turned 19 over the summer but anyways listening to country music doesn’t make you a country person nor does it mean they you aren’t one. Some people would think “Oh you just now listening to country music you must not be country or you are.” Etc. No. I could be as country as the next person it doesn’t matter. It’s just that I was never exposed to that genre of music especially being a colored race. It’s not a racist thing, It’s just that most black people that I meet always say “country music is for white hillbillys” and I find that so disgusting to say and very disrespectful. I am proud to listen to country music and I bout getting ready to fix those on my phone and play that in my truck when she comes back. Anybody has a problem with me listening to country music whether it’s modern or the real deal stuff then you can kiss my lightskinned …. not all black people hate to listen to country music tho. It’s about what you were exposed to the most. Im sure there are hundreds of black country singers and dang they sound real good. All country singers are amazing and I’m very thankful I actually took the time to truly listen to it instead of just hearing it and it goes out one ear and the other. It’s relaxin and I love it. Everyone should just give country music a try and stop being stereotypical and embarrassed. It’s just a genre of music it won’t kill ya. Let’s all be Americas here and enjoy us some country music 🙂 and that goes for any genre that’s sterotyoed onto people. I can tell you right now that I love country music and won’t never stop listening to it ????