Sex Pistols - Never mind the Bollocks, here’s the sex pistols -
Released on oct 28, 1977 in the UK and Nov 11, 1977 in the U.S.
This is their only studio release.
They were already notorious by the time it was released for dropping an F bomb on live tv, being fired from 2 labels, and banned from playing live in some parts of Britain. Many record stores refused to carry it because of the title and some record charts refused to list it's title, showing just a blank space instead!
In spite of all that it debuted at #1 in the UK and went gold a few weeks later. If you want to be on top, you either need to be good or notorious. I'll let you decide which they were.
The original title was slated to be "God save the Sex Pistols", but it was changed in mid ’77 based on a phrase Steve Jones overheard two fans repeating, . Johnny Rotten explained its meaning as a working-class expression to "stop talking rubbish”.
In the UK, it faced harsh and swift criticism and retaliation. London police visited the Virgin record store and told them they would face prosecution for indecency if they continued to display posters of the album cover in the windows. On Nov 9, 2 days before it was set to release in the US, they honored their threats and arrested a shop owner in Nottingham for displaying the record after being warned several times. What followed was a circus of a court case. The prosecution argued that the King James version of the Bible uses the term Bollocks to refer to testicles but later version changed it to stones. The defense successfully pointed out that Bollocks is an old English word for priest and in this context of the title meant nonsense. The prosecution argued back it wasn’t the word bullocks but the overall theme of the album and the band, which probably cost them the case.
There were eventually found not guilty on all charges.
Johnny Rotten supposedly passed a note that said, “Don’t worry, if we lose, we’ll change the name to never mind the stones, here’s the sex pistols." And that, IMO, is pretty damn funny. both for the testicles reference and what could be argued was a dig at The Rolling Stones.