Tom Petty’s Love is a Long Road sees 36,979% increase in Spotify streams following GTA 6 trailer launch

The GTA 6 launch trailer sent the world – at least temporarily – into a frenzy. Fans of the franchise have waited 10 years since the release of GTA V for a morsel of concrete information regarding its followup, and yesterday (5 December), the sixth instalment of the series was confirmed.

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But while the bulk of the attention was aimed at the forthcoming game itself – the launch trailer has received over 100 million views at the time of writing – late rock musician Tom Petty has received a spike in interest following the inclusion of his song, Love is a Long Road, in the trailer.

So much interest, in fact, that Spotify tells BBC Newsbeat streams for the track have increased 36,979 percent compared to this time last week.

Love is a Long Road was released in 1989 as a B-side to Tom Petty’s biggest hit, Free Fallin’. The track now has over 11 million streams at the time of writing.

A Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Petty – who died in 2017 at the age of 66 – is also known for such songs as American Girl, Don’t Do Me Like That and I Won’t Back Down.

This isn’t the first time a movie or video game has led to a rapid increase in interest in the musician behind its soundtrack. For example, Spotify says that when Linda Rondstadt’s Long Long Time was featured in the TV adaptation of The Last of Us, streams increased by 4,900 percent.

And when Stranger Things featured both Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill and Metallica’s Master of Puppets in its fifth season, streams and plays of both tracks skyrocketed.

In the GTA 6 trailer, the track – which features a classic rock arrangement driven by crunchy electric guitar lines and smooth keyboard stabs – sets the scene in Leonida, an open-world zone based on the US state of Florida, and its Miami-inspired Vice City.

GTA 6 will feature the series’ first female protagonist since 1999, following her Bonnie and Clyde-style escapades with her romantic partner.