The popularity of rock star Tom Petty’s 1989 hit, ‘Love is a Long Road’ has surged again in popularity thanks to its inclusion on the Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer this week.
Streams on Spotify of the song have jumped by an astonishing 37,000% in the days since the trailer dropped as a new generation has discovered Petty’s music.
Petty, who died in 2017, was recognised in the trailer as GTA paid homage to the 80s as it signalled the game’s return to Vice City. It is also not the first time Petty’s music has featured in GTA. In San Andreas, his track ‘Runnin’ Down a Dream’ was on the tracklist for radio station K-DST.
Spotify says that ‘Love is a Long Road’ has now had more than 11 million streams on the platform. You can bet that the track has also had a massive boost in popularity on the various other music streaming platforms out there, but Spotify was first to the punch on getting its figures out.
‘Love is a Long Road’ is about a doomed relationship – could its inclusion be an Easter Egg for fans about some of the plotline for the upcoming game, which is set for release in 2025?
If you like what you hear of Tom Petty, then go raid your parents’ (or grandparents’) CD collection for more details.
