I wonder why nobody in the history of this series came up with the idea of creating a radio station with synthwave music. This music is made for driving.
Artists like The Midnight, TimeCop1983, NINA, W O L F C L U B, Kidburn, Dana Jean Phoenix, Sebastian Gampl and so on…
Racing with such a musical background is an adrenaline pumping experience and of course it could be perfect for nostalgic journeys, because this music has a wide spectrum of possibilities.
Never heard of Synthwave, but I tried a few on YouTube, and you’re right it is perfect for driving games. It also sounds like Outrun music which was perfect for that game.
It isn’t the first time such request has been made on this forum and it was long before FH4 launched, but unfortunately the idea of this type of radio never made it into the game.
Synthwave has been my guilty pleasure (not the type of music I would usually listen) ever since I found Newretrowave youtube channel ~5 years ago. I think about 70% of time while I play racing games I have synthwave playing in the background (I even have playlists made specifically for that purpose).
It is also good to listen while driving IRL.
I do exactly the same. My favourite playlists on Spotify are always on in the background but dedicated radio station with his own DJ would be perfect.
P.S. New Retro Wave channel on YouTube is my favourite as well:) .
I don’t think you can expect adding a new radio station (thus new licenses) to a game that’s almost a year old.
I certainly didn’t expect them to take the music away like they did… ironic isn’t it?
and yes… censoring music so that it is unplayable is taking it away.
Just listen to Synthwave in the background like me. I’d much rather listen to custom playlists I’ve curated or new albums from my favorite artists then be forced to listen to the same 10 songs for eternity. Plus I don’t think anyone at Playground would have such good taste in music. Them having a Greta Van Fleet song in the game is all you need to know about what they think is good music…
If you ask me i always wanted some kind of ambient music radio or instrumental misic without any vocals like: Chrome Sparks - Goddess from FH3 and Pica Disco - Lazyboy from FH2.
As a foreigner i like that song to be honest.
Just listen to Led Zeppelin then. Greta Van Fleet is just a bad cover band, minus the covers…
If I understand this right, most of this music is instrumental, so there wouldn’t be many opportunities to censor it, quite unlike lyrics containing “Gd" or "flying hgh” and other horrors our poor innocent ears must be protected from at all costs.
Considering how Playground’s taste in music I wouldn’t be surprised if FH5 only has 1 radio station with 1 song that’s just a bunch of trash can lids banging but it’s done by a multi cultural group of all ages and ethnicities so we wouldn’t be allowed to say anything negative about it.
Though come to think of it I’d rather hear that than “Don’t cha?..don’t cha?..don’t cha?” which without a doubt is 1 of the most unbearable and irritating songs I have ever had the misfortune of hearing, it will take a song dedicated to insulting me, my family and friends that forces me to emigrate to a far away place with no TV or internet for me to hate it more than that ‘song’.
A welcome addition, imo…
…but I’d much rather have an all-80’s station. 
Add NightStop (IMO Dancing Killer is fantastic album for this sort of thing), Wolf and Raven to the list and some other Synthwave bands with live guitars and there would be quite diverse and interesting playlist. Yeah, I’m all for it. Licensing from this kind of acts probably wouldn’t be a legal maze, like it can be for older stuff.
Why not both? 
Actual 80’s stuff can be actually difficult due to rights. I think overall GTA Vice City did capturing that era really well but license for some tracks was valid for only so long. But there was actually a bit of controversy couple of years or so ago when they needed to pull some songs from Steam and other digitally distributed versions of the game. Other thing is that there was huge change in the market during the early to mid '90s when lot of record labels got bought or went bankrupt and because of that and other reasons it’s actually unclear who actually own’s who’s catalogue, practically holds the licensing rights for some songs to digital releases. I recall TV-series Miami Vice DVD releases got delayed many years because they couldn’t even find who to negotiate about licensing music used in series to distribute it in disc format. I don’t know if they ended replacing some of the music to get if finally released or not.
There’s something funny about FH2 radio stations. Music is like composed from all over the place from different decades, styles and genres. Playlists per radio station were shorter but they don’t feel so repeating as FH4 stations. I think they did perhaps even better work in FH3 too but selection was perhaps also a bit more original. Who ever were responsible did fantastic work there IMO.
Unfortunately while FH4 sort of sounds like it tries to make similar effort, I don’t feel it really gets there. I think there is some irony in this, there’s awful amount of repeats of certain songs from story to story. So they made shorter playlist, selection wasn’t as even as in previous titles, then came to self-censorship (ESBR had nothing to do with it, MS can however interpret as they imply them as long as they aren’t in conflict with actual regulations) which practically rendered some songs unusable. So they painted themselves into a corner there. LOL
Maybe in the future they like to think their approach regarding music in game again. Meanwhile in the current situation, if they somehow managed to slip additional radio station in, it wouldn’t only enhance player experience in general, but give them more tools to produce great Forza moments.
I have used Spotify on background on Xbox One X and for PC there are software players like 1by1 which have very small memory footprint. Works but quality of Spotify’s playlists are hit or miss. For '80s music it appears there are some quite identical playlists composed by copying old CD-compilations covering that era. Audio is however sourced from different releases so levels may jump quite a bit from song to song, etc. Honestly I don’t think some of the creators have ever listened through their playlist but just put them together for whatever reason. I have found New Retrowave / Outrun playlists more consistent.
Boy am I glad they implemented Spotify into Gamebar
I use Spotify with some DnB and a Racing specific playlist when not blasting a synth playlist.
But yes Synthwave and Outrun would be perfect in these games. Not sure why PG hasn’t done it yet. A lot of the stations in Horizon 4 suck so they need updating.
Perturbator, Power Glove, Lazerhawk, Dance with the Dead, Lorn, Com Truise, Carpenter Brut and Danger are just a few artists that need to be put into a Forza Horizon game.
Anna Yvettes Shooting Star is a good one though.
Maybe something will change in Forza Horizon 5…
It would be nice anyway.
Well it has been added.