Metal Box by Public Image Ltd.

Metal Box, the second album from Public Image Ltd, came out on Virgin on 23 November 1979, and it came in exactly that: a round metal tin holding the first pressings. Forget the Sex Pistols. John Lydon, Johnny Rotten no more, has left the three-chord bash of the past well behind, and even the jagged First Issue sounds like a warm-up next to this.

What you get instead is avant-garde noise with a dub pulse. Jah Wobble's bass is the engine, deep and rolling and hypnotic, Keith Levene (who'd helped found the Clash) scrapes out a harsh, metallic guitar that sounds like sheet steel being sawn, and Lydon moans and sneers cryptic lines over the top. "Poptones" and "Careering" are the ones the countdowns grabbed. Virgin put it out again in February 1980 in an ordinary sleeve as Second Edition, and it now stands as a landmark of post-punk; Rolling Stone ranked it number 461 among the 500 greatest albums of all time in 2012.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.