New Zealand town petitions to stop Celine Dion “sound battles”

nme.com:

Celine Dion “sound battles” after drivers made it a craze to blast out her ballads at 2am.Residents in the city of Porirua, New Zealand have created a petition to stop the noise from continuing in the early hours of the morning.

Participants of these “sound battles” have claimed that their meetups and blasting of Dion’s hits such as ‘My Heart Will Go On’, the lead single from the 1997 film Titanic, are a way for them to express themselves.The sound battles are usually formed by a group of people who gather in a certain area with their cars in order to blast music from sirens that are typically used for emergency warnings.

The goal of the gathering is to play the music from the sirens in the loudest and clearest way (per the BBC).Dion’s ballads have become the number one pick for these battles due to her music having such high treble.“Celine Dion is popular because it’s such a clear song – so we try to use music that has high treble, is clear and not much bass,” said Paul Lesoa, one of founders of a group that runs siren battles in Auckland, to The Spinoff.Lesoa went on to explain how the stigma around the sound battles was unfair and claimed that this was their hobby just like any other.

He also shared that they have applied to Auckland council for a permit but have yet to hear back.“We just love music, we love dancing, and doing this is better than night clubbing or drinking in a bar in the city, where there’s fights etc,” he told the publication.