V-Rock, Flash FM, Wave 103, Fever 105 — every Grand Theft Auto: Vice City radio station, ranked, with the iconic 1986 tracks each one made famous again.
Eighteen radio stations and the West Coast Talk Radio / Blaine County Radio talk programs — every Grand Theft Auto V station ranked.
Nine in-game radio stations and the talk-radio masterpiece Chatterbox FM — every Grand Theft Auto III station, ranked, with the standout tracks worth seeking out.
PS5 & Xbox Series X|S launch — PC delayed beyond. Stay current with our daily intel.
Lonely Hearts, Entertaining America, Area 53 — every Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas WCTR talk-radio show, ranked by writing quality.
Vice City shipped in 2002 with nine radio stations and approximately 100 licensed tracks — at the time the largest licensed audio catalog in any video game. The catalog is widely cited as the strongest single soundtrack in the GTA series and one of the most influential video-game radio releases of the 2000s.
Below is the editorial ranking.
Hosted by Lazlow in his original Rockstar voice role. Iron Maiden, Mötley Crüe, Loverboy, Quiet Riot, Megadeth, Twisted Sister, Alcatrazz, Anthrax. V-Rock is widely considered the strongest single radio station ever shipped in a video game — the curation is encyclopedic, the licensing was a 2002 coup, and Lazlow's segments are some of the funniest writing in the game.
Standout track: Iron Maiden, "Hallowed Be Thy Name."
Hosted by Toni. Hall & Oates, Toto, INXS, The Buggles, Talk Talk, Lionel Richie, Joe Jackson. The "default" Vice City station — the one most likely playing when you steal a car early in the campaign. Excellent driving music; the tracklist is a near-perfect 1986 Top 40 cross-section.
Standout track: Hall & Oates, "Out of Touch."
Hosted by Adam First. Spandau Ballet, A Flock of Seagulls, Blondie, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Tears for Fears, Kim Wilde, Cutting Crew. The new-wave / post-punk station. Wave 103 carries the iconic Vice City synth-pop palette and is the closest sonic match to what we expect Trailer 2's GTA 6 audio mix to evoke.
Standout track: Frankie Goes to Hollywood, "Two Tribes."
Hosted by Oliver "Ladykiller" Biscuit. Michael Jackson ("Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'"), Indeep, Kool & the Gang, Mary Jane Girls, Evelyn "Champagne" King, Whispers. The boogie / disco station, anchored by what was then a recent Michael Jackson licensing deal. Fever 105 is the dance-music station of Vice City and the best Tommy-driving-into-the-Malibu-Club station.
Standout track: Michael Jackson, "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'."
Hosted by Fernando Martinez. Foreigner, REO Speedwagon, Squeeze, Mr. Mister, John Waite, Kate Bush. The soft-rock / power-ballad station — the one for tear-up moments. Fernando Martinez is one of the most-quoted Vice City station hosts; his sleazy radio-DJ persona is canonical 1986 cheese.
Standout track: REO Speedwagon, "Keep On Loving You."
Hosted by Mr. Magic. Run-DMC, Whodini, Afrika Bambaataa, Funky 4 + 1, T La Rock, Davy DMX. The pirate-radio old-school hip-hop station. Wildstyle is the strongest hip-hop station in the entire 3D-era trilogy — a who's-who of mid-80s East Coast classics.
Standout track: Run-DMC, "Rock Box."
Hosted by Pepe. Latin freestyle, salsa, mambo, and the kind of Latin-pop crossover that owned Miami radio in 1986. Espantoso plays heavily in Little Havana / Little Cuba and is the station of choice for Cuban-faction missions.
Standout track: Tito Puente, "Mambo Gozón."
The talk-radio satire station. Vice City Public Radio features call-in shows, a fake conservative talk host (Maurice Chavez), and the recurring segment "Pressing Issues" with Michelle Montanius — all comedy writing in the Lazlow vein. VCPR is the spiritual ancestor of WCTR (San Andreas) and West Coast Talk Radio (V).
The talk station isn't ranked higher because, like all Rockstar talk stations, you stop and listen rather than use it as background driving music.
The cross-over station from GTA III, slightly updated. Original tracks commissioned by Rockstar; less iconic than the licensed stations. Head Radio is the continuity callback — it's the same station that plays in GTA III's Liberty City, just three years later in Vice City's universe.
Standout track: Conor & Jay, "Fade Away" (carried over from GTA III).
The 2021 DE shipped with dozens of tracks removed from VC's stations, mostly due to license expiry. The biggest cuts:
Fan-made restoration mods exist on PC. The original PS2 / PC v1.0 release remains the gold-standard Vice City soundtrack experience.
Vice City's radio is widely cited as the best video-game soundtrack ever shipped. The reasons: licensing scope, era specificity, host writing, station diversity, and the fact that the music supervision (David Felton, Ivan Pavlovich) was treating the radios as a serious editorial project rather than a gameplay-music afterthought.
For more on 1986 Miami, see the Vice City game hub.
