Am I the only one that has to listen to like GNR on youtube while playing the classic fallouts?

[Black Angel]

I just seem to remember the Vault Dweller commenting in one of the dialogue options that everyone in the bunker seemed on edge as if the Brotherhood was hiding from/preparing for something.

It was because of the rumors of mutants sighting increasing as of late in the desert to the north, but there was nothing like lockdown at the time.

I think it is perhaps disingenuous to say that Fallout 3 actively utilizing 50's music was somehow uncharacteristic when the franchise begins with the Ink Spots playing on a 2077 television set.

Except Fallout 1&2 used the songs in the intro before you even start a new playthrough. If I'm allowed to guess the reasons why, it's because they simply want to set up the tone, mood, and atmosphere of what's to come, instead of implying it having anything to do with the *actual* setting. That's why the TV playing Maybe abruptly died, and why A Kiss to Build a Dream On only played on the video showcasing GECK as if it was included some time before the vault closes for the first time, instead of being something somehow known by the denizens of the waste 300 years after its initial release.

Personally I think having the radio on the Pip-Boy was a mistake. Despite finding Inon Zur's tracks far too medieval fantasy and whimsical in 3, 4 and 76, I actually quite enjoyed his tracks in NV and they blended well with the inclusion of the Mark Morgan tracks. It was cool to walk the Mojave listening to this grim western ambient, only to dust my shoes off and arrive at somewhere like the I-88 and hear In The Shadow of the Valley playing on a tinny radio set at the bar.

Yeah, allowing radio-playing on pip-boy was a mistake. Would rather walk through the waste to the ambient soundtracks, then stumble upon one of the songs playing on the radio in a bar in town, and better yet in casinos and the streets of the Strip.
And yeah, as much as I disliked Inon Zur's pieces in Fallout 3, which sounded more like some epic fantasy ambience like you said, I actually liked his pieces in New Vegas. He's actually talented, just needed some right direction from the right lead/developers.

With Fallout as a setting you have to keep in mind that to a degree, rule of cool is baked into the DNA. Now I would give everyone here the benefit of the doubt in knowing I am not talking about the Pete Hines level of "talking ghouls and mutants" excusing, but I think the 50's music as an aesthetic thing is something that I very easily slot into the suspension of disbelief.

I actually think it depends. Have you paid attention to the song selections included in New Vegas? As far as I could tell, literally ZERO are about post-apocalypse and wastelands. Instead, they rightly fit like a glove to the wild west-esque nature of the setting. I actually love to let a playlist of New Vegas Radio songs play on Youtube while I do whatever these days.

Meanwhile, Fallout 3?

 

[Macster2001]

I don't even listen to the radio stations in 3 and NV, I certainly wouldn't listen to them in the classics.
Thing is, I see no reason to listen to music that'd be 300 years old in-game. Classical music is timeless, but this is pop music. It'd be completely forgotten.

Classical Music was the Pop music of its day. There is nothing inherently timeless about it, it has stuck around simply because it is music of quality, and the same can be said about the "oldies". Its even more conceivable that a culture that maintained some semblance of 50's american would see these songs sticking around well into the future.