I'm probably going to catch some crap for this one, but it's kind of amusing. So what the heck? From Australia:
Officials think the "Mandy" singer's music will keep teens from hanging out and revving their engines in parking lots.
Officials in Rockdale, Australia will pump the music of Barry Manilow through speakers in their town to keep hooligan kids from loitering and revving their car engines in neighborhood parking lots. They hope that the "daggy" (slang for unhip) music will send kids fleeing. "Based on reports...daggy music is one way to make the hoons leave an area because they can't stand the music," Councilor Bill Saravinovski told Australia's Daily Telegraph. In Tasmania, the music of Bing Crosby was successfully used to keep kids away from a shopping center in Tasmania as well.
I have my doubts that it would work. Around here, the "hoons" would simply turn up their car stereos blasting their own music (usually either rap) to drown it out, and the problem would be even worse than before. (Of course, if they did that, the police would have a pretext to chase them away.) Besides, you never know. Some kids might actually like Barry Manilow, you know, in an ironic hipster sort of way.
That's hilarious.
Of course, I'm almost 50, and Barry would certainly chase me away!
This is old news actually. Been done years ago in this country with classical music. Said to be effective. I know classical music will produce lots of moaning when I play it in the car, and will cause my kids to leave the room at home, much more effectively than me saying, "Would you please leave the room now?"
Oh, I know it's old news, but it's still amusing. I've seen stories like this crop up every few years ever since the 1970's. It still amuses me, though.
They play classical music in Saskatoon's downtown bus mall, which has a rep as a trouble filled place. They talked about moving it, but the site they considered would just have amplified the problems by making it more isolated from regular traffic.
Barry Manilow would drive me nuts. Classical music would be nice for me and seems to work OK on the teenagers.
Just not Thea Musgrave. Please. (Nothing personal, just can't stand her music for very long. I've been that way all my life.)