rockstar's metal stations are stuck in the 80s and i'm over it
The radio station reveals were cool and all, but The Chamber being the metal station already has me rolling my eyes a little. The tracks they mentioned were Black Sabbath, Pantera, Slayer. All great bands, don't get me wrong, but every single one of them is from the 90s or earlier. It's like Rockstar only knows one era of heavy music.
I get why V Rock in Vice City leaned on that stuff. The game is set in the 80s, so it makes sense. Same with Radio X in San Andreas. But when the setting is modern day, why does the metal station still sound like it's programmed by someone who stopped listening in 1995?
GTA IV had LCHC and EFLC, and those were supposedly the hardcore and thrash/death metal stations. Almost the whole catalog was from the 80s. GTA V gave us Channel X for punk and that was another 70s and 80s oldies station. It's a pattern at this point.
I grew up on the classics too. I love Sabbath. But would it kill them to throw in some stuff from the 2000s or 2010s? Nu metal and post grunge were massive movements and they're basically ignored. Symphonic metal, industrial, all that stuff gets skipped too. Meanwhile the pop stations in these games are full of current hits. It's weird that anything with a distortion pedal has to be something my grandpa listened to.
I'm not asking for the whole station to be modern. Just a mix. A little variety. The way they treat rock and metal makes it feel like they think the genre died after the 90s. At this point I'd settle for one station that plays something from this century. Not holding my breath though.
Source: r/GTA6 · Curated content.
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