10 Rock Albums That Killed Artists' Careers

3. Mardi Gras - CCR

Everyone tends to point the finger at the record industry suits whenever an album goes belly up. After all, these are people who supposedly don't care about the audience and would rather serve the bottom line than actually worry about their artists' health. Though CCR were basically imploding well before Mardi Gras was even an idea, the fact that they decided to soldier on anyway just makes the end result all the more shameful.

Coming off of losing rhythm guitarist Tom Fogerty, John Fogerty was not in a good headspace to go in and make another album. At the same time, you had Stu Cook and Doug Clifford demanding to have more of a say in the proceedings, which led to them writing their own songs for the record. Even though this democracy style band dynamic works for a lot of bands, this is about as clear a misstep as you can get.

Aside from a handful of decent cuts from John like Someday Never Comes, most of the record feels like it was thrown together just for the hell of it, with Stu's song Take It Like a Friend being one of the more unlistenable songs to have Creedence's name associated with it. Since half of the band are still at each others' throats to this day, it's safe to say that Mardi Gras was far from the party atmosphere that the title promised.