Sup you cyberpsychos!
I havent found a thread regarding this, so I decided to open it up. I want to talk about the car radio in the game, specifically their tracklists.
Now, before I go ahead into nitpicky music nerd-territory, I want to point out that this will be mostly subjective and is ultimately only a minor issue. Because the game is this good, I can only find minor things I dislike. And one of these things is the music on the radio, which to me as a music nerd is important. The combat and ambient tracks slap so damn hard, I got into fights only to hear the absolute belters by PT Adamczyk and the other guys, 10/10!
But the radio was a letdown, in my opinion. The tracklists are too short for a game this long, one where you spend this much time on the road. At some points I turned off the radio because it became annoying to hear the same tracks over and over again. An example for a great radio soundtrack in my opinion was GTA Vice City. The radio stations didnt have a lot of tracks, due to technical limitations and all, but it felt like it was enough for the amount of playtime. And if the tracks repeated, it didnt matter, because the music choice was on point and full of 80s classics that slap to this day.
But here, it feels like a half baked imitation of radio stations. Now I dont expect the same quality and moderated shows like in GTA.
What do I mean?
Im not talking about the stations where the music just wasnt my taste, thats fine, we cant like everything.
Im talking about the missing consistency and weird track choices, weird choices of artists. The radio as a whole seems like an afterthought compared to the rest of the artstyle, the vibe, the music and so on.
Here are some examples of what I mean:
As a techno lover, when starting the game, I was happy to see Samizdat Radio, a techno station. Techno comes too short in games in my opinion. Im not a fan of Nina Kraviz and her pretentious pseudo-hard and deep-techno, "but at least its not some mainstream garbage artist like Marshmello" I thought.
But after a few tries I never listened to the station again. 7 tracks are wayyy too short, and in half of the tracks she pretends to be Aphex Twin with some pseudo-ambient hypnotic nonsense that goes nowhere. Also, why is not a mixed set like Impulse FM? Nina Kraviz is also a DJ, she could have done it easily. Missed opportunity there, techno lends itself to mixing, which would give the station a bit more longetivity when it comes to listening.
In general, the radio is a letdown when it comes to electronic music, at least the kind of music that goes deeper than the avergae persons perception of what electronic music is.
The only station that delivers at least a little bit is Impulse. Which in itself somethig I also found disappointing as hell.
Yeah, its great that Idris Elba mixed it. Its great that he does real DJing and stuff. But the set itself is such a nothingburger of mainstream tech house cliches, damn. Only one track from the whole set had something unique about it, the rest is such overdone, Ibiza-friendly, sanitized, squeky clean and mainstream-friendly tech house nothingness. Night City is a nasty and grimy place, and then you turn on the radio and you hear Impulse, music straight from a Ibiza beach full of insufferable and overstyled instagram-model-influencers. Come on. We have Ritual FM, a station that delivers fking mean black and death metal, but when it comes to techno, here is this pretentious mainstream nothingburger.
Other examples: Morro Rock Radio. In itself solid, but why is there a rap track in there? I like rap, but why is Xerxez - Heave Ho
in there? Or why is Krushchev's Ghosts - Testmaster
a song thats hardcore af not on Ritual FM?
Didnt the jingles say its a radio for oldschool rock and stuff? Tracks like these completely break the music flow. And I like metal and stuff. But Krushchevs Ghosts made me instantly switch stations. You hear some nice oldschool rock, and then its suddenly an angry man talking angrily into a microphone to some repetitive riffs, while not being in time to said riffs. Why? Why is that in there? Its like cooking a nice italian menu and then suddenly adding fking spicy sushi with wasabi in there. Yeah, sure, but what the fk? Im here for italian food, not for japanese and not for being weirded out.
And in my opinion, the same goes for music. Yeah, you can randomly throw together what you like and call it a playlist. Like you can just throw stuff into a pot, turn on the stove and call it cooking.
But there is a reason why we have things like styles and certain vibes we go for, vibes we aim for by aligning the components towards that vibe.
And like in cooking, when going italian, I dont use wasabi. And when putting together a playlist of classic rock, I dont put rap in there.
The biggest WTF to me was Dark Star FM though.
Backxwash - Headrush
or Choke Hold by Idris Elba
are fking bangers. And the station has the only dark and hard techno track of all the stations, Poloz - Memories of Mzuzu
But then the station does a complete 180 and plays this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebRwZGG-wgI
What in the absolute fk. Taste is subjective and all. But how is this fitting? How does that fit the vibe of the station? The other tracks are experimental electronic and techno stuff, and then this comes on. Yeah, its cool they added polish music into the game. Polish pride and all. But fking hell, there are loads other polish artists they could have picked, instead they picked this autotuned emo stuff, that derails the musical flow so goddamn hard. If a DJ suddenly played this at a club after a hard banger, Id tell him to fk off and let someone play who knows about music.
Or they picked this for the station: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vnyCXVwZBo
What in the fk is that? I have a very broad music taste, I listen to lots of different stuff and I can appreciate lots of different things, even if I dont like them. And I listen to lots of experimental and weird stuff, which dont always follow the traditional rules of styles and genres.
But this track is just complete and utter what the fk-ness. What the fk is happening there? Are the musicians having a stroke? Because its all random noise, none of it is in time to any other musical element in there. Its like people picked up instruments and began playing without any idea or understanding of what music is and how it works, or what even a consistent rhythm is.
For me, the only station I could leave on without turning it off at some point was Impulse. And that became annoying as well because its so bland and boring.
Some stations I didnt touch at all because they werent my taste. And those I could listen to, I always had to change the station at some point, because there was always at least one or two tracks I absolutely hated.
Like Vexelstrom. Some nice tracks in there, but then it plays this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaXCr9KuOoM
That lead synth is unbearable, that sound has been beaten to absolute death by mainstream dubstep over 10 years ago. This not "current music".
The track tries to blend metalcore vocals with hard electronic music, but falls completely flat due to the insanely cliche and flat sounding instrumental part.
Coming back to my original example: GTA Vice City. After all these years, the radio stations are still 10/10 to me. Not only due to nostalgia, but because the stations are carefully and thoughtfully curated by people who really care about music. The stations all had their own vibe, and all the tracks felt perfect for their respective stations.
In CP2077 I was thrown off by the inconsistency, the stations felt like incomplete or inconsistent playlists played by the game in the background.
Now I dont imply that the people at CDPR dont care. I personally am getting the impression that the radio stations were an afterthought, or maybe there wasnt enough time or resources to do it better. Whatever the case, Im not hating, Im just pointing out the things I found weird in a otherwise fantastic game. And when something is this good, the nickpicky stuff sticks out. If there were more serious problems, I wouldnt be here writing about the radio stations, which at the end of the day arent this much of a big deal.
For me, it would make a great game even greater. Please stop with the pretentious weirdo stuff, and stick to the genre. And more of it would be nice. There are so many talented artists out there, artists that would give their music to CDPR for free. So it makes me wonder why they didnt take advantage of the community...
Discuss and peace
I havent found a thread regarding this, so I decided to open it up. I want to talk about the car radio in the game, specifically their tracklists.
Now, before I go ahead into nitpicky music nerd-territory, I want to point out that this will be mostly subjective and is ultimately only a minor issue. Because the game is this good, I can only find minor things I dislike. And one of these things is the music on the radio, which to me as a music nerd is important. The combat and ambient tracks slap so damn hard, I got into fights only to hear the absolute belters by PT Adamczyk and the other guys, 10/10!
But the radio was a letdown, in my opinion. The tracklists are too short for a game this long, one where you spend this much time on the road. At some points I turned off the radio because it became annoying to hear the same tracks over and over again. An example for a great radio soundtrack in my opinion was GTA Vice City. The radio stations didnt have a lot of tracks, due to technical limitations and all, but it felt like it was enough for the amount of playtime. And if the tracks repeated, it didnt matter, because the music choice was on point and full of 80s classics that slap to this day.
But here, it feels like a half baked imitation of radio stations. Now I dont expect the same quality and moderated shows like in GTA.
What do I mean?
Im not talking about the stations where the music just wasnt my taste, thats fine, we cant like everything.
Im talking about the missing consistency and weird track choices, weird choices of artists. The radio as a whole seems like an afterthought compared to the rest of the artstyle, the vibe, the music and so on.
Here are some examples of what I mean:
As a techno lover, when starting the game, I was happy to see Samizdat Radio, a techno station. Techno comes too short in games in my opinion. Im not a fan of Nina Kraviz and her pretentious pseudo-hard and deep-techno, "but at least its not some mainstream garbage artist like Marshmello" I thought.
But after a few tries I never listened to the station again. 7 tracks are wayyy too short, and in half of the tracks she pretends to be Aphex Twin with some pseudo-ambient hypnotic nonsense that goes nowhere. Also, why is not a mixed set like Impulse FM? Nina Kraviz is also a DJ, she could have done it easily. Missed opportunity there, techno lends itself to mixing, which would give the station a bit more longetivity when it comes to listening.
In general, the radio is a letdown when it comes to electronic music, at least the kind of music that goes deeper than the avergae persons perception of what electronic music is.
The only station that delivers at least a little bit is Impulse. Which in itself somethig I also found disappointing as hell.
Yeah, its great that Idris Elba mixed it. Its great that he does real DJing and stuff. But the set itself is such a nothingburger of mainstream tech house cliches, damn. Only one track from the whole set had something unique about it, the rest is such overdone, Ibiza-friendly, sanitized, squeky clean and mainstream-friendly tech house nothingness. Night City is a nasty and grimy place, and then you turn on the radio and you hear Impulse, music straight from a Ibiza beach full of insufferable and overstyled instagram-model-influencers. Come on. We have Ritual FM, a station that delivers fking mean black and death metal, but when it comes to techno, here is this pretentious mainstream nothingburger.
Other examples: Morro Rock Radio. In itself solid, but why is there a rap track in there? I like rap, but why is Xerxez - Heave Ho
Didnt the jingles say its a radio for oldschool rock and stuff? Tracks like these completely break the music flow. And I like metal and stuff. But Krushchevs Ghosts made me instantly switch stations. You hear some nice oldschool rock, and then its suddenly an angry man talking angrily into a microphone to some repetitive riffs, while not being in time to said riffs. Why? Why is that in there? Its like cooking a nice italian menu and then suddenly adding fking spicy sushi with wasabi in there. Yeah, sure, but what the fk? Im here for italian food, not for japanese and not for being weirded out.
And in my opinion, the same goes for music. Yeah, you can randomly throw together what you like and call it a playlist. Like you can just throw stuff into a pot, turn on the stove and call it cooking.
But there is a reason why we have things like styles and certain vibes we go for, vibes we aim for by aligning the components towards that vibe.
And like in cooking, when going italian, I dont use wasabi. And when putting together a playlist of classic rock, I dont put rap in there.
The biggest WTF to me was Dark Star FM though.
Backxwash - Headrush
What in the absolute fk. Taste is subjective and all. But how is this fitting? How does that fit the vibe of the station? The other tracks are experimental electronic and techno stuff, and then this comes on. Yeah, its cool they added polish music into the game. Polish pride and all. But fking hell, there are loads other polish artists they could have picked, instead they picked this autotuned emo stuff, that derails the musical flow so goddamn hard. If a DJ suddenly played this at a club after a hard banger, Id tell him to fk off and let someone play who knows about music.
Or they picked this for the station: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vnyCXVwZBo
What in the fk is that? I have a very broad music taste, I listen to lots of different stuff and I can appreciate lots of different things, even if I dont like them. And I listen to lots of experimental and weird stuff, which dont always follow the traditional rules of styles and genres.
But this track is just complete and utter what the fk-ness. What the fk is happening there? Are the musicians having a stroke? Because its all random noise, none of it is in time to any other musical element in there. Its like people picked up instruments and began playing without any idea or understanding of what music is and how it works, or what even a consistent rhythm is.
For me, the only station I could leave on without turning it off at some point was Impulse. And that became annoying as well because its so bland and boring.
Some stations I didnt touch at all because they werent my taste. And those I could listen to, I always had to change the station at some point, because there was always at least one or two tracks I absolutely hated.
Like Vexelstrom. Some nice tracks in there, but then it plays this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaXCr9KuOoM
That lead synth is unbearable, that sound has been beaten to absolute death by mainstream dubstep over 10 years ago. This not "current music".
The track tries to blend metalcore vocals with hard electronic music, but falls completely flat due to the insanely cliche and flat sounding instrumental part.
Coming back to my original example: GTA Vice City. After all these years, the radio stations are still 10/10 to me. Not only due to nostalgia, but because the stations are carefully and thoughtfully curated by people who really care about music. The stations all had their own vibe, and all the tracks felt perfect for their respective stations.
In CP2077 I was thrown off by the inconsistency, the stations felt like incomplete or inconsistent playlists played by the game in the background.
Now I dont imply that the people at CDPR dont care. I personally am getting the impression that the radio stations were an afterthought, or maybe there wasnt enough time or resources to do it better. Whatever the case, Im not hating, Im just pointing out the things I found weird in a otherwise fantastic game. And when something is this good, the nickpicky stuff sticks out. If there were more serious problems, I wouldnt be here writing about the radio stations, which at the end of the day arent this much of a big deal.
For me, it would make a great game even greater. Please stop with the pretentious weirdo stuff, and stick to the genre. And more of it would be nice. There are so many talented artists out there, artists that would give their music to CDPR for free. So it makes me wonder why they didnt take advantage of the community...
Discuss and peace
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