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Barry Manilow, the coiffed, ever-young hero of blue-haired old ladies the world over, could live to see his music transformed from drunken pub fare into the newest innovation in crowd control, according to the Associated Press. A shopping mall in the New Zealand city of Christchurch is reportedly having trouble with juvenile delinquents spreading trash, getting drunk, getting high, tagging walls with spray paint, and talking filth to local shoppers. The solution? Pipe in hits like “Mandy” and “Can’t Smile Without You,” which, like this obnoxious tone said to be the scourge of teenage ruffians everywhere, will (it is hoped) clear the area of smack-talking punks. Paul Lonsdale, manager of the local business association, denies that Manilow was selected to drive teenagers crazy. “The intention is to change the environment in a positive way… so nobody feels threatened or intimidated,” he says. “I did not say that Barry Manilow is a weapon of mass destruction.”

No, for that look to some other acts, like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, which the CIA used to bully Al Qaeda leader Abu Zabaydah into spilling his beans (along with other forms of “enhanced interrogation”). We should also not forget that Van Halen, Whitesnake, and Black Sabbath, among others, ultimately convinced Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega that he’d rather spend the rest of his life in a federal supermax than sit through another minute of “War Pigs.”

Will such tactics work on Christchurch’s problem children? Doubtful if we believe 16-year old Emma Belcher. “We would just bring a stereo and play it louder,” she told the AP.

Photo used under a Creative Commons license from Alan Light.