GTA Vice City Radio Stations: All Nine Stations and Their Tracklists

Nine stations, 103 licensed tracks, and the best world-building in the game. Here is every GTA Vice City radio station - its DJ, its genre and its full tracklist - plus which songs were cut from later releases.

How radio works in Vice City

Vice City has nine radio stations and 103 songs in the original release, and the soundtrack is the single most effective piece of world-building in the game. Every station is diegetic - you hear it through the car radio, between commercial breaks and DJ patter - and the station you are listening to tells you something about where you are in the city.

The split is roughly: seven music stations covering pop, disco, hard rock, new wave, soft rock, Latin jazz and hip hop, plus two talk stations for the satire. There is also a tenth custom station on most platforms that plays your own music.

Almost everything is licensed 1980s material, which was unusual and expensive in 2002. That licensing is also why the soundtrack has shrunk over time - see the section on removed tracks below.

All nine stations at a glance

Flash FM - pop

Hosted by Toni. Flash FM is the mainstream pop station, and it is the one most players leave on by default. The tracklist leans on 1983 to 1986 chart material, which places it squarely in the game's present day rather than in nostalgia.

Fever 105 - disco, soul and funk

Hosted by Oliver "Ladykiller" Biscuit. Fever 105 is the smoothest station in the game and, for a lot of players, the one that best matches the Vice City mood - night driving, neon, no particular destination.

V-Rock - hard rock and metal

Hosted by Lazlow - the same Lazlow who hosted Chatterbox in GTA III, here as a rock DJ. V-Rock is also where the game's fictional band Love Fist appears, with two tracks written for the game rather than licensed. The band members show up as characters in the story.

Wave 103 - new wave and synthpop

Hosted by Adam First. Wave 103 is the station that sounds most like the decade itself - drum machines, cold synths, and a tracklist heavy on British and European new wave.

Emotion 98.3 - power ballads

Hosted by Fernando Martinez - the self-styled "saviour" of lonely listeners, another character carried over from GTA III's radio. Emotion 98.3 is all soft rock and power ballads, and its DJ patter is some of the funniest writing in the game.

The inclusion of Jan Hammer's Crockett's Theme is a deliberate nod - it is the theme from Miami Vice, the television show the entire game is modelled on.

Radio Espantoso - Latin jazz and mambo

Hosted by Pepe. Radio Espantoso is the only station that reaches outside the 1980s, drawing on mambo, son and Latin jazz from the 1950s through the 1970s. It is the sound of Little Havana and Little Haiti.

Wildstyle - hip hop and electro

Hosted by Mr. Magic. Wildstyle is the earliest-sounding station in the game, built on electro and early hip hop from 1979 to 1986 - the sound of the genre before it became the dominant pop music of the following decade.

The talk stations: K-Chat and VCPR

The two talk stations are where the game's satire is sharpest, and they are worth listening to properly rather than skipping.

K-Chat

Hosted by Amy Sheckenhausen, a celebrity interview show. She sits down with Vice City personalities including Jezz Torrent of Love Fist, adult-film director Steve Scott, fitness and lifestyle guests, and a rotating cast of people with nothing interesting to say. The interviews go badly in exactly the way they should.

VCPR (Vice City Public Radio)

Hosted by Maurice Chavez, and built around a single topical panel show called Pressing Issues. Chavez moderates while his guests - including Congressman Alex Shrub and Pastor Richards - argue past each other about morality, politics and the end of the world. It is the most overtly political writing in the game, and it has aged into one of the better-remembered parts of the soundtrack.

MP3 Player and Tape Deck

Most versions of Vice City include a custom station that plays your own music instead.

Which tracks got removed, and why

Vice City's soundtrack is licensed music, and licences expire. Re-releases from 2012 onwards - including the 2021 Definitive Edition - dropped a set of tracks that Rockstar could not or chose not to re-license. The commonly noticed removals are:

If you played the game in 2002 and something sounds different now, this is almost always why. The talk stations and the licensed-material structure are otherwise unchanged, and the two Love Fist tracks were written for the game, so they were never at risk.

Frequently asked questions

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