The Jam’s ‘Down In The Tube Station’ får seriøs konkurrence blandt nyudgivne singler 13. oktober 1978. Tidligere Sex Pistols-frontmand John Lydon (AKA Johnny Rotten) debuterer med sit nye band Public Image Limited og et voldsomt profileret nummer, der tager Lydon’s tid i Pistols under kritisk behandling. Måske den mest straight rockmusik-agtige sang PIL nogensinde begår, men alligevel helt med sin egen sound og en original tilgang, der sammen med Siouxsie and the Banshees’ iskoldt kantede musik er med til at skabe det musikalske rum, der snart skal blive kendt som postpunk. En forrygende debut; they mean it, maaan! Det høres.

John Lydon i Melody Maker, oktober 1978: “‘Public Image’, despite what most of the press seemed to misinterpret it to be, is not about the fans at all, it’s a slagging of the group I used to be in. It’s what I went through from my own group. They never bothered to listen to what I was fucking singing, they don’t even know the words to my songs. They never bothered to listen, it was like, ‘Here’s a tune, write some words to it.’ So I did. They never questioned it. I found that offensive, it meant I was literally wasting my time, ’cause if you ain’t working with people that are on the same level then you ain’t doing anything. The rest of the band and Malcolm never bothered to find out if I could sing, they just took me as an image. It was as basic as that, they really were as dull as that. After a year of it they were going ‘Why don’t you have your hair this colour this year?’ And I was going ‘Oh God, a brick wall, I’m fighting a brick wall!’ They don’t understand even now.”