Why no "Shweine" at the start of GTA IV?

The first song playing in Roman’s car at the start of  GTA IV is "Schweine" by Glukoza. However, during recent playthrough I didn’t hear it so I researched this issue using Parik’s AudioMetadataTool. 

Here’s why you may not hear the song

1. You have latest Complete Edition with cut radio

In 2018 licenses for many songs in GTA IV expired. Rockstar cut them from the game or replaced with alternatives. Schweine was one of those cut songs. 

Original version of the game actually has 2 versions of the song:

• RADIO_VLADIVOSTOK/SHVAYNE in radio_vladivostok.rpf – standard version on Vladivostok FM

• LOADING/SHVAYNE_EDITED_VERSION in LOADING.rpf – edited version playing at the start of the game, it was replaced with “The Invasion” by Seryoga in Complete Edition

Here’s original loading.rpf from retail version of the game:

 Loading.rpf in Complete Edition has the same size as in retail version but it has edited version of The Invasion in place of Schweine:

SOUNDS.DAT15 that contains info about all audio tracks in the game was modified too.

Original SOUNDS.DAT15:

INTRO_MUSIC_TRACK, Type: audStreamingSound, Category: FRONTEND_RADIO, references
  INTRO_MUSIC_TRACK_STEREO, Type: audMultitrackSound, with tracks
   LOADING_SHVAYNE_EDITED_VERSION_SHVAYNE_EDIT_RIGHT, Type: audSimpleSound
   LOADING_SHVAYNE_EDITED_VERSION_SHVAYNE_EDIT_LEFT, Type: audSimpleSound
    both taken from LOADING/SHVAYNE_EDITED_VERSION

Complete Edition SOUNDS.DAT15:

INTRO_MUSIC_TRACK, Type: audStreamingSound, Category: FRONTEND_RADIO, references
  INTRO_MUSIC_TRACK_STEREO, Type: audMultitrackSound, with tracks
   LOADING_INTRO_CUTSCENE_TRACK_INTRO_CUTSCENE_TRACK_RIGHT, Type: audSimpleSound
   LOADING_INTRO_CUTSCENE_TRACK_INTRO_CUTSCENE_TRACK_LEFT, Type: audSimpleSound
    both taken from LOADING/INTRO_CUTSCENE_TRACK (shown as 0x7ac09496 in 2020CE loading.rpf)

What can you do to hear it again? Install Radio Restoration mod, it bundles small file downgrade_loading.rpf which contains only SHVAYNE_EDITED_VERSION and which is connected to the game through modded rpf.xml. It also restores correct references to it in SOUNDS.DAT15.

2. You skipped the intro cutscene

The INTRO_MUSIC_TRACK set in SOUNDS.DAT15 (which is LOADING/SHVAYNE_EDITED_VERSION) starts playing near this moment in the intro cutscene as Niko leaves the ship and The Soviet Connection fades:

SHVAYNE_EDITED_VERSION has 16 seconds of silence at the beginning to avoid mixing with fading The Soviet Connection: 

When Roman opens the car door one may already hear Schweine playing.

Naturally if you skip the cutscene then INTRO_MUSIC_TRACK never starts and you’ll spawn in the car with random Vladivostock FM track playing. That's what I did and that's why I didn't hear it.