As I read through the posts I notice the exclusion of The Beach Boys. Overshadowed by the Beatles they are responsible for much of what the Beatles did. Paul McCartney has stated that Sgt Peppers/Revolver was created the way it was partly because Pet Sounds had just been released and was very revolutionary, secondly he also stated that it was almost a competition between the two bands to who could be more revolutionary. Obviously most consider Sgt Peppers that album, but what few realize is that The Beach Boys were working on the album Smile. This album never got released because of Brian Wilson's drug addiction and weight and mental issued but from the fragments put together Smile would have blown Sgt Peppers out of the water. Now I have a large number of bootleg sessions of the album so it is somewhat hard for me to explain how good it could have been to those of you with out them. Some songs that were on it: Good Vibrations, Heroes and Villains, Surf's Up (nothing like surfing safari, Surfing USA or a cheesy pop song), a whole elemental thing (fire, water, earth, wind--VERY STRANGE STUFF), Wonderful and a lot of other stuff (NONE of the songs later released especially Good Vibrations were anything like what some of the masters have). Brian just could never find himself in the same mindset (LSD and all does help, just ask John and Paul) It was easily the oddest and most revolutionary stuff that could have been released, but of course as history tells us it was not released and forever the Beach Boys will be overshadowed and not be held as equals to the Beatles as I think and many think they should be.
You may notice this is my first post...Hello All...You should see some more of me.