The Grand Theft Auto V soundtrack, like previous games in the Grand Theft Auto series, features various radio stations that play different genres of music when the player enters vehicles in the game. The stations consist of licensed music, DJ chat and spoof advertising. The game features 18 in-game stations with 240 licensed songs, 16 of which are musical stations and the other two are talk stations.
Since the game's location is modelled on southern California, the developers attempted to create an accurate representation of Californian music. Production of the soundtrack also consisted of licensing music for the radio stations, and selecting a DJ that matches the genre of music the station hosts. The soundtrack consists of a wide variety of radio stations that play different genres of music, including reggae, hip hop, pop and country. The game also features an original and dynamic score composed by Tangerine Dream, Woody Jackson, Alchemist and Oh No which plays out in several selective missions. Selected tracks from the score were later released on The Music of Grand Theft Auto V. In September 2014, it was announced that new songs would be added to some of the radio stations in the next-gen releases of the game.
As with other recent GTA in-game radio networks, songs, DJ comments and other material are randomly sequenced, and may occasionally incorporate references to in-game events. While the DJs do not reference changing weather patterns (a feature not seen since Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas), some DJs will reference the time of day (saying "Good morning" or "Good evening" when applicable, for example).
In developing the radio stations, the development team sought to reinforce the game's recreation of California by licensing tracks they felt appropriately echoed a "Cali feel". On the inclusion of the pop station Non-Stop-Pop FM, music supervisor Ivan Pavlovich noted "the first time you get off an airplane in L.A. and you hear the radio and the pop just seeps out... We wanted that. It really connects you to the world". He felt that music licensing for the game involved a greater discernment than in Grand Theft Auto IV, as the music in Grand Theft Auto V played a greater role in building a Californian atmosphere. "It reflects the environment in which the game is set", he explained. Initially, the team planned to license over 900 tracks for the radio, but over time they refined the total number of tracks to 241.