XTC "Oranges & Lemons" [1989]

We've all experienced in school that time when the class clown was the smartest, nerdiest person in the room as well; it's also probably the first time you actually thought of murdering somebody. Well apparently they have those people in England, too -- except over there, they give them record contracts. Hence the existence of XTC in the first place, let alone allowing them to release their 11th fucking album, "Oranges & Lemons" (not sure about the oranges; the lemons here are all over the place). Cutesy, precious, cringe-inducing musical passages routinely awarded A+s from the impressionably insecure schoolmasters by Public Wedgenemy #1 Andy Partridge and his dork-squad of a band solidify just how shitty it was to try to listen to music in the late 80s. To say nothing of the fact that because XTC were so aggressively anti-commercial (yet disgustingly poppy at the same time -- try that trick without hurting yourself) the music biz spawned an even worse carbon copy by the name of Tears for Fears. If that's not enough to inspire you to give Partridge a swirly until his glasses fall off, I don't know what will.