Bandleader Andy Partridge, who wrote most of "Apple Venus", characterised the work as "orchustic", a portmanteau of "orchestral" and "acoustic". He meant the album title to refer to "a beautiful woman". The album effectively marked a comeback for XTC, who spent half the decade on strike against their former label Virgin Records. "Apple Venus" was originally planned as a double album, but because the group did not have enough money to record all the material they had stockpiled, they elected to split the more rock-oriented songs as "volume two" (released one year later as "Wasp Star").