single disc and a small paper insert. Critical reception Metal Box is now considered a post-punk classic, and is highly acclaimed. Andy Kellman of AllMusic said that "PIL managed to avoid boundaries for the first four years of their existence, and Metal Box is undoubtedly the apex", noting that the album "hardly [sounds] like anything of the past, present, or future". He also compared it to the works of Captain Beefheart and Can. Drowned in Sound reviewer Mark Ward wrote that the album "tears away from Lydon's sweaty punk roots and into the cold chambers of dub evoked by Can, the more outré electronics of Bowie's Berlin years and the coruscating post-punk sound that guitarist Levene was in the process of pioneering" and that "if you don't yet have a copy, you really should". Village Voice critic Robert Christgau described the album's sound as "a full-bodied superaware white dub with disorienting European echoes." The album was ranked at No. 2 among the top "Albums of the Year" for 1979 by NME, with "Death Disco" ranked at No. 11 among the year's top tracks. Robert Palmer placed the album at third place in his best of 1980 list for the New York Times, proclaiming the album to be the "definitive album of postpunk rock and the year's most compelling slice of metal machine music." In 2003, the album was included in Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list at No. 469, the magazine calling it "eerie, futuristic art punk with dub bass and slashing guitar". Rolling Stone also included it in their 100 Best Albums of the Eighties, ranking it at No. 76. In 2002, Pitchfork ranked Metal Box at No. 19 on its "Top 100 Albums of the 1980s". It was also, along with their debut album, included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, with the reviewer Stevie Chick saying "the abrasive textures and powerful sounds they discovered...would influence all manner of experimental music for decades to come", while describing it as "cold dank, unforgiving, subterranean." The songs "Albatross", "Poptones", "Careering", "Chant" and "Radio 4" were selected as "key tracks". In 2020, Rolling Stone included it in their "80 Greatest albums of 1980" list, praising the band for pushing "beyond post-punk into a fractured space between demented abstraction and cranky freedom". Track listing All words, music and production credited to Public Image Ltd.