"Lyric Language": Next Verse, Same As The First...

The history of the Lyric Language series is shrouded in mystery. Sometime in the early 1990s titles became available on VHS and in paperback and cassette tape combos; in the mid-90s it was reborn in a book-and-CD format, and sometime in the early 21st century it was re-released as a DVD/CD set. Many of these combinations appear to be fading from the media landscape (we can't find them on their distributor Penton Overseas' website, although they can still be found elsewhere), but Penton appears to have repackaged some Lyric Language titles yet again, this time as "Lyric Language LIVE!," a DVD and CD and "sticker activity book." Buyer beware.

Languages: Lyric Language DVD/CD sets are available in Spanish, French, Italian, and German, and are now packaged with sticker books in Spanish and Italian. We sampled their Spanish and Italian DVD/CD editions.

Materials: Each Lyric Language DVD clamshell comes with a 70-minute DVD and companion CD with the same twenty-one songs. We have not seen the sticker activity books that are new this fall, but we can say with confidence that even the William Shakespeare of sticker activity book writing could not save these videos.

Scope and methodology: Dual-language songs are translated from the target language to English measure by measure. Video footage visually represents song content and subtitles in the two languages are captioned in a black bar at the bottom of the screen throughout. Foreign language content is sung by native speakers, with the same content and songs used for all languages.

Impressions: We experienced many emotions while viewing Lyric Language videos with and without our three-year-old daughter. Chief among these were confusion, incredulity, anger, boredom, and misery, leavened only by moments of surprised, halfhearted joy at spotting a particularly grotesque cliché. Have you ever seen a clown whose makeup is confined to pastel hues? With Lyric Language, you can.

The songs' phrase-by-phrase dual-language lyric format and fully-synthesized instrumentation are excruciating, and the video content ranges from Vaseline-coated scenes of rain dripping down windowpanes and kids in bulky sweaters gazing out of them with chins in hand to meditations on late-80s kids' summer fashions and the kind of hairspray usage rates that should be drawing workman's comp for the cast of "Full House" to this day. Some of these videos do follow the musical content closely; others are sequenced in collages of generalized footage, and bear little direct relation to the vocabulary used in the songs.

The irrelevant and barely-touched-upon but heavily advertised Family Circus tie-in will remind some of us of the Family Circus content printed on variety-pack boxes of Frito-Lay chips back in the '80s, which can claim relevance solely through its introduction of the word "Barfy" to the world of snack packaging. ("Look, Mama, this Cheeto looks like Jeffy!")

Where to Buy: You can find Lyric Language DVD/CD sets in various webshops and, if you shop in the right places, in unexpected DVD sale bins in otherwise DVD-free establishments. You can also buy the new DVD/CD/sticker activity book version directly from its distributor, Penton Overseas.