I chose "no, even though the album was designed for it", and this is precisely why I hope it doesn't get even a nomination.
If they got an award, or at least a nomination, for an album they have created with the sole purpose of mass communication, then I can't see why they would stop doing it, and so success for the album will just lead to more of the same (assuming the critical plaudits haven't already assured that happening). They need to see that albums should not be written with sales figures in mind, they should be written because you need to write those songs and need to make those statements. Otherwise it's not "art", it's just a product.
Still, I'm not sure just how much they really intended it to be super-marketable - I wonder if Nicky just heard the finished product and thought "ooh, we might have another EMG on our hands here, let's talk it up as being our last shot at mass communication, as if we purposefully wrote a bunch of radio-friendly hits."
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"A man who had read all the books published today would have had to have read all Dan Brown's novels, two volumes of Chris Moyles autobiography, The World According To Clarkson by Jeremy Clarkson, The World According To Clarkson 2 by Jeremy Clarkson, The World According To Clarkson 3 by Jeremy Clarkson... His mind would be awash with bad metaphors, unsustainable reactionary opinion, and one long anecdote about the time Comedy Dave put pound coins in the urinal.
In short, the man who had read everything published today, would be more stupid than a man who had read nothing."
- Stewart Lee
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