Personal taste blah blah blah, the suggestion that either of those albums tops Sgt. Pepper, especially if we're talking about "pop music", is total contrarian garbage. And it doesn't matter that it's not their best collection of songs.
I was referencing GAF there. Forever Changes isn't even a pop album; rather, it struck back at the hippie scene in many ways and its sound doesn't resemble the pop music of the time, so the comparison is flawed from the start.
Sgt. Pepper
is nowhere near the best collection of Beatles songs, but that probably has no relevance to this discussion since the album does tower over most other '60s pop albums by virtue of its creativity alone. I do love it, in spite of its more visible flaws (see Yup's post above).
Top 10 of 1967, and I don't care if I'm a contrarian asshole for this or not:
1. Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced?
2. The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour
3. Love - Forever Changes
4. Moody Blues - Days of Future Passed
5. The Who - The Who Sell Out
6. The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
7. Jefferson Airplane - Surrealistic Pillow
8. Leonard Cohen - Songs of Leonard Cohen
9. Aretha Franklin - I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You
10. The Kinks - Something Else by The Kinks
For the record, all 10 of those albums are better than The Suburbs AKA my favorite album of last year. This is what curmudgeons are talking about when they say new music blows.