Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?

Lots of records--some good, some ok, some wretched--have been cited as the next Sgt. Pepper, but here are some of the most significant LPs that followed in the Beatles' wake:

The Rolling Stones' ill-advised flirtation with psychedelia, Their Satanic Majestie's Request, is likely the most frequently mentioned Pepper wannabe. Though it yielded an ok song or two and is better than most people give it credit for, this type of music wasn't the Stones strong suit and they soon returned to bluesy, rocking form, releasing a series of albums between 1968 and the early 1970s that turned out to be the best of their career.

An album recorded at Abbey Road soon after Pepper and engineered by Geoff Emerick to boot, the Zombies' Odessey and Oracle is a very strong LP featuring some excellent songs, including the gorgeous "Brief Candles" and the hit "Time of the Season." It's not a concept album and it doesn't sound much like Pepper but, like the Beatles, this was a band working at the top of its game.

Pink Floyd were an innovative, experimental singles band before Pepper came out, but their first LPs A Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Saucerful of Secrets (as well as those that followed later in the 1960s and in the 1970s) shared Pepper's same spirit of adventure

Love's Forever Changes is another example of a LP that holds together extremely well as a long-form statement, blending lovely horn and string arrangements with traditional rock instrumentation.

Pepper likely had a big impact on the Who, which went on to record their Who Sell Out and Tommy concept albums afterwards and the Kinks, who went to work on Village Green Preservation Society and Arthur.

The Moody Blues put out Days of Future Passed, which blended classical and rock, and the Small Faces released Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake, which featured a side-long fairy tale set to music.

The Pretty Things did a concept album, S.F. Sorrow, in 1968 that's Pepper-inspired, and the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson was in the midst of working on his super-ambitious Smile album when Pepper was released and took the wind out of his sails. He was so overwhelmed by the Beatles' masterstroke that he lost confidence in himself. Smile songs creeped out here and there (most notably on the Smiley Smile album, Surf's Up and the 1990s Good Vibrations) box set, but it took until 2003 for Wilson to finally put out Smile in complete, newly recorded form.