Word: lovingly
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Scoring PlayerG Gl A Pts Pen P M Kyle McDonough 32 27 28 55 24 5 6 Ian Boyce 29 15 26 41 13 26 Jim Larkin 32 16 18 34 3 6 Jim Walsh 32 13 19 32 15 38 Ricker Love 30 9 20 29 10 20 Duke Stump 26 12 16 28 14 28 Dan Lambert 32 11 10 21 5 10 John LeClair 18 9 12 21 20 40 Jerry Tarrant 32 3 18 21 26 52 Marc Lebreux 32 7 10 17 17 32 David Browne 30 4 10 14 11 22 Jim Fernholz...
...Instead of presenting gently coasting instrumentation, the group returns to the hard-hitting style of 1984's The Big Express and its earlier albums. Oranges and Lemons features a fair number of XTC's traditional energetic social statements, although it does show a suspicious tendency toward bouncy, top-40ish love songs and includes, not surprisingly, one or two utter failures...
...best songs on the album is "Merely a Man," which contrasts with "Skeleton" and "Antheap" in its optimism for mankind. Partridge suggests that "With logic and love we'll have power enough to raise consciousness up and for lifting humanity higher." This is one of the few instances on Oranges and Lemons that Colin Moulding has a chance to come through with a powerful bass line, making the song one of the album's strongest in spite of Gregory's unneeded and sometimes overdone guitar solos...
Although every XTC album contains its fair share of love songs, the group seems to have gotten a little sappier and a little more conventional on Oranges and Lemons. "The Mayor of Simpleton'"s lyric silliness ("I can't have been there when brains were handed 'round or get past the cover of your books profound") is somewhat offset by Partridge's fast-paced vocals, but with its bouncy rhythms and annoying chimes, it's still more of a junior high dance song than the XTC we know and love. Ironically, although "Mayor" proclaims, "Well I don't know...
Unlike the other love songs on Oranges and Lemons, "Miniature Sun" takes a reflective tone, comparing love and betrayal to the sun's heat. Partridge's voice rises and falls to create a spooky effect reminiscent of Skylarking's "1000 Umbrellas...