The Donnybrook Writing Academy

Sure, your main focus in Grand Theft Auto IV may be on pulling off that bank heist or stealing a helicopter or banging that chick you met on the internet, but throughout your (mis)adventures you’ve been logging a lot of hours listening to Liberty City’s 16 music radio stations.

Having sold over 3.6 million copies on its first day alone, GTA IV and its soundtrack of 200 songs are getting a lot of play. Here’s a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly on the airwaves in Faux York City.

Best Radio Station: ElectroChoc.

This was a very tough call since most of the stations are pretty good. If JNR (aka “the jazz station”) had stretched further out into post-bop territory with a little Charles Mingus or Eric Dolphy I would have given them the nod, but instead I’ll have to go with ElectroChoc.

Why? Because it best captures the feel of the game. It’s dark and dispassionate, but with a propulsive beat the keeps you moving forward. It’s got some predictable moments (see: Justice) but for the most part is filled with refreshing choices that both pay homage to the past and anticipate The Next Big Thing.

Worst Radio Station: Liberty Rock Radio 97.8.

With Iggy Pop as DJ, you would think the tracks on this station would be better in just about every respect: more adventurous, less predictable, filled with unexpected nuggets. What it really proves, however, is that Iggy is getting old.

Stevie Nicks’ “Edge of Seventeen” and Genesis’ “Mama” are great, unobvious tracks by big artists, but almost all of the other selections are questionable. The Smashing Pumpkins are represented with “1979,” a classic song, to be sure, but one that doesn’t jive with the rest of the more classic rock oriented set.

This should have been more “I Wanna Be Your Dog” and less “The Seeker.”

Best WTF Song: R. Kelly “Bump N’ Grind.”

As I write this, R. Kelly is in a courtroom battling child pornography charges. We all know about his penchant for giving golden showers to underage girls, but when I’m listening to The Vibe 98.8 and “Bump N’ Grind” comes on, all bets are off.

“My mind is telling me no but my body,” Kelly announces, his voice straining with uncontrollable sexual passion, “my body’s telling me yes!” Classic.

Most Annoying Song: Burro Banton “Badder Den Dem.”

The repetition of the line “Badder Den Dem” is enough to make me want to shoot someone. You know, if I wasn’t already busy shooting people.

Most Self-Aggrandizing Moment: Juliette Lewis playing her own band.

Radio Broker is a big disappointment. With all the great indie music out there these days, only the tracks by Whitey and LCD Soundsystem do anything special here. Unlike Iggy Pop, who gets to play a track by the Stooges on his station because he’s Iggy fuckin’ Pop, Juliette Lewis has not earned the right to include “Inside the Cage” by her band The Licks. It makes her lame set lamer and makes me wish they’d picked someone who knew what they were doing rather than Lewis, who is content to throw yet another bone to Les Savy Fav and Unkle.

Nicest Discovery: Anything on IF99 (International Funk).

Curated by Femi Kuti, this collection of Afrobeat and global funk is filled with surprises from a handful of decades. You’ll know some of the artists already (Fela Kuti, The Meters, War, Gil Scott-Heron) but no station feels as consistently fresh as this one.

Best DJ: François K on Electro-Choc.

François K’s set is both balanced and risk-taking, slapping relative newcomers like Boys Noize and K.I.M. alongside legends like Liquid Liquid and Nitzer Ebb. SebAstian’s remix of Kavinsky’s “Testarossa” is top-notch Knight Rider shit while Black Devil Disco Club’s “The Devil in Us (Dub)” matches the mood of the game perfectly. Throw in some tracks by Justice, Playgroup, and Simian Mobile Disco, and you’ve got a great snapshot of the contemporary electronic music scene.

Worst Song: Anything on L.C.H.C.

I feel bad writing this because Jimmy Gestapo (singer for New York City hardcore stalwarts Murphy’s Law) actually did a great job curating this slate of tunes. It’s got a lineup that reads like a Best Of the genre with bands like Agnostic Front, Bad Brains, Sick of It All, and Cro-Mags, so you can’t fault it there. It’s just that after all of the hardcore action in the gameplay, it’s nice to tune into something less intense and less abrasive. It’s redundant at best.

Most Interesting Station: Vladivostok FM.

Vladivostok FM is filled with surprises. Not only have you never heard any of these songs before, but the stylistic scope of the assembled tracks is far-reaching.

A lot of it is pretty awesome, too. Oleg Kvasha (presumably not the hockey player) contributes “Zelenoglazoe Taksi (Club remix),” an electronic dance track that is better than half the songs on ElectroChoc. Anyone who can’t recognize how bad-ass the hip-hop of “RAP” by Dolphin is doesn’t deserve to play the game.

Least Interesting Station: Tuff Gong Radio.

I love Jamaican music, particularly old roots reggae. Maybe that’s why I find a reggae station that plays almost nothing but Bob Marley and the Wailers (8 of 9 songs) so offensive. It’s like having a rap station that only plays Eminem.

With so much amazing, practically unknown Jamaican music from the 1970s floating around on compilations and reissues, it’s a travesty to elect the Marleys as the sole representatives of an entire genre of music. Even the “rasta” mission is called “Concrete Jungle.”

Best Station for Expanding Your Musical Horizons: The Journey.

Although it is supposed to be the new-age relaxation station, The Journey’s tracklist reads like a textbook on minimalist classical music. Philip Glass and Steve Roach sit alongside Terry Riley’s masterpiece “A Rainbow in Curved Air.” More experimental compositions by Tangerine Dream and electronic wunderkind Aphex Twin help flesh things out further.

Most Listenable Station: The Classics 104.1.

Keep it locked to DJ Premier’s set of old-school hip-hop and you can’t go wrong. From Stetsasonic to Gang Starr, it’s a tour de force of forgotten gems. When Marley Marl drops science, it pays to listen.

The Station You’ll Never Listen To: Fusion FM.

Roy Ayers is a snooze and so is this collection of songs.

What You Should Listen To Instead: JNR (Jazz Nation Radio).

Instead, tune into the other station Ayers DJs: JNR. It is about as perfect a synopsis of classic and bop jazz that you can distill into 10 songs. All the heavyweights–Ellington, Rollins, Davis, Gillespie, Parker, Blakey–are represented.

The real magic moment, however, is when you’re driving en route to kill a bunch of drug dealers and Chet Baker’s dulcet voice begins singing “Let’s Get Lost” in the softest of tones. Moments like this make GTA IV fucking incredible.