It Was 40 Years Ago Today: Rocks Seminal and Defining Moment Celebrates Another Anniversary. The date was June 1, 1967 , and it represented for rock fans what the birth of Christ represented for Christians: the demarcation point between what was and what would forever be. In all honesty, however, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was not the first of its kind; nor were the Beatles the first to cross over that threshold of what was to become known as album rock. Two years earlier, Bob Dylan had graced us with Bringin ’ It All Back Home , followed closely by Highway ’61 Revisited . In December of that year the Beatles would release Rubber Soul ; this was the album that Brian Wilson couldn ’t get out of his head for six months. No, the birth of Christ would be an inaccurate analogy to the release of Sgt. Pepper's . A more appropriate comparison would be the Declaration of Independence. Any decent historian would tell you that by July 4, 1776, the Colonies were already at war with...