10 Rock Albums That Almost Killed Careers

Again with another album that's been heralded as a straight-up classic. Across its runtime, Nevermind the !*$% by the Sex Pistols practically set the benchmark for punk rock in the UK, with Johnny Rotten rising to prominence as one of the most snide frontmen to pick up a microphone. Then again, the fallout of this one record proved to be enough for any other artists' lifetime.

During the making of the record, the Pistols let go of original bassist Glen Matlock for supposedly not being punk enough, which drove a wedge in between the group. Despite Matlock contributing a good bit of the riffs in the early days, the arrival of Sid Vicious proved to be a double-edged sword from the beginning. Though Vicious had the right look and attitude for the group, his dependence on drugs led to Steve Jones filling in on both bass and guitar on the record.

When it came time to tour though, things got even more hectic, with the band practically falling apart in the middle of the tour of America, as each of them found their way back to England before Rotten left to form PiL. For as much as an anarchic aesthetic might work well in practice, you can't really blame anyone if it starts to go downhill pretty fast.