Assignment 23 | Evan Winkler

Last summer, I spent a lot of time playing the video game Grand Theft Auto V. Of course, the game has been out for a very long time at this point, but last summer was my first time ever playing it. From the long list of features in the critically acclaimed game, one that I found able to enjoy when I wasn't playing was the music. Being an open-world game that takes place in a fictionalized version of the modern United States, the game's developers chose to acquire the rights to use real songs by real artists in the soundtrack, specifically for the various fictitious radio stations to which the player can listen when driving a car. The different radio stations each play music from different genres, including funk or pop, and I found myself listening to the game's rock/power pop and classic rap stations the most frequently.

I decided to look up the rap songs featured in the game on YouTube and create a playlist, and after creating said playlist I added more songs from the videos recommended by YouTube (of the same genre, of course, with many of the same artists). I don't know how much of a conventional choice to make that this is, but I decided to listen to the music when I worked out everyday, and to me it seemed to be a pretty good fit. The 'mood' of the music is quite conducive to physical exercise, in my opinion, and the intensity of the music and lyrics are a good distraction from the exhaustion of the routine.

Songs included on the playlist (some of the ones without obscenities in their titles) were:
Songs by the group NWA (I can't say what that stands for here), such as "Gangsta Gangsta" and "Straight Outta Compton"
Songs by 2Pac including "California Love" and "Hit 'Em Up"
"Dollaz and Sense" by DJ Quik
"Who Shot Ya?" by the Notorious BIG (Mr Cain would probably like reading this)

I can't name all of the songs (there are about 50 of them) and my playlist is itself "incomplete" - I consistently add new songs to it. I can never listen to the playlist in its entirety, so I always set it to "shuffle" whenever I listen while exercising for the sake of listening to a different combination of songs each day.