GTA IV & The Music

We’ve spoken several times on PSFK about gaming as an emerging business market for music companies already. Now Reuters gives us an update on the collaboration between Rockstar (the makers of Grand Theft Auto) and record labels to create in-game radio-stations:

Fans of dance/electronica have Electro-choc, hosted by Francois “K” Kevorkian. Punk fans have Liberty City Hardcore hosted by Murphy’s Law vocalist Jimmy Gestapo. Nigerian artist Femi Kuti spins international funk on IF99, while Ukrainian superstar Ruslana hosts the Vladivostok FM channel of Eastern European pop music.

MassiveB label owner/producer Bobby Konders, who hosts a reggae channel in the game, went to the trouble of flying to Jamaica and revoicing several existing songs by the original artists to add shout-outs that refer to fictional in-game locations. And DJ Green Lantern produced an entire station with all-original songs exclusive to the game rather than licensing existing tracks.

Although Rockstar won’t disclose the exact number of tracks before the game is released, Pavlovich says it will “far exceed” the last installment of the series — “GTA: San Andreas” — which holds the current record for most songs in a soundtrack at 156. “Grand Theft Auto IV” features a record 16 music-based stations that generally hold 10-15 songs each. So expect more than 200 songs in the new title.

A soundtrack of that size carries a hefty price. According to sources close to the deals, Rockstar is paying as much as $5,000 per composition and another $5,000 per master recording per track. If that deal applied to all songs, Rockstar’s soundtrack budget may exceed $2 million.

You do wonder if Rockstar really did pay that much. With the huge popularity of the game, surely any forward thinking music label would be paying Rockstar to be on the game’s radio-station?

Grand Theft Auto
Crime pays for music biz with new Grand Theft Auto - Yahoo! News