The next time a car alarm or a neighbourhood catfight disturbs your slumbers, count your blessings: at least you don’t live in Porirua, part of the Wellington metropolitan area in New Zealand. Porirua’s inhabitants have long been tormented by nocturnal “siren battles”, high-volume audio contests between young men who mount dozens of loudspeakers on their cars (or motorbikes, or push bikes) and then cruise around, competing over who can produce the loudest, clearest sound. Whoever said life in Kiwi-land was dull?
On the face of it, Celine Dion, Canada’s middle-of-the-road power balladeer, seems an unlikely ally for miscreants seeking to shatter the suburban calm. Yet such is the clarity of her voice, and the dominance of treble over bass in her signature tracks, that Ms Dion’s work is much favoured. Even with the volume dial turned up to Spinal Tap’s infamous level eleven, Dion distortion is minimal. Ms Dion should be flattered.
That is small comfort to the red-eyed residents of Porirua. While most people on the planet would probably agree they’ve also heard My Heart Will Go On enough times to last them a lifetime, the good folk of Porirua would settle for not having to hear it again at 85 decibels at three in the morning. They have launched a petition to persuade the council to intervene.
Other people’s loud music, from leaky headphones to noisy neighbours, has long been recognised as a peculiarly grating and intrusive form of pollution. Home fans employ it to disturb visiting sports teams in their hotels. US troops blasted out Van Halen to flush Manuel Noriega from his refuge in the Holy See’s nunciature in Panama, while their helicopter-borne predecessors in Vietnam favoured, albeit apocryphally, the Ride of the Valkyries. Back in New Zealand, it sounds as though Celine Dion might be due some extra royalties.
