Like most pop moments, the Summer of Love has been exaggerated somewhat by history. While there's no denying that the summer of 1967 was a time of great cultural ferment, there's also no denying that by the time the Times and Newsweeks of the world get through with such things, the complexities tend to be sanded down. In the end you're left with the impression that the whole world was dancing topless in Golden Gate Park, and it wasn't.

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One thing that hasn't been overstated is the greatness of the music that came out of that fateful year. Though the singles of that year -- including "Happy Together" by the Turtles, "Whiter Shade of Pale," by Procol Harum, "Respect" and "(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman" by Aretha Franklin, "Ode to Billie Joe" by Bobbie Gentry, "Light My Fire" by the Doors, "I'm a Believer" and "Daydream Believer" by the Monkees, "To Sir With Love" by Lulu, "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison and others -- remain indelible fixtures of oldies radio, TV commercials and movie trailers, it was the albums that really moved things forward.

One can argue that the rock album as we know it (or at least as we used to know it before the internet changed everything again) was born in 1967 with the advent of the Beatles' titanic "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Whether you believe that or not, it's pretty clear that that the standard got a whole lot higher that year. The best evidence for that thesis lies in these 10 records, which still have the capacity to sound electrifying 40 years later.

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1. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" - The Beatles
   Truly, the mother of the ambitious pop-rock album, not just for its indelible songs, but for the unified package the album presented: sounds, pictures, words, even cut-out badges! Sgt. Pepper is a world unto itself, and the music -- from the rocking title track, the jaunty "With a Little Help from My Friends," the acidic "Getting Better," the surreal "Fixing a Hole" and "Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite," the metaphysical "Within You, Without You" and the unimpeachable, sublime "A Day in the Life" -- explores every corner. All Beatles records are essential, but none is better.
2. "Are You Experienced" - The Jimi Hendrix Experience
   No one had ever heard anyone play guitar like Hendrix, though, for good or ill, that's about all we've heard since. Of course, only Jimi was Jimi. And on this flawless masterpiece of a record, on which every song is not only a stone classic, but a jaw-dropping fusion of blues, acid rock and pop, we are directed to remember that he wasn't just some virtuoso ax-man, but a brilliant songwriter as well. "Purple Haze," "Manic Depression," "Hey Joe," "The Wind Cries Mary" and the epic, eternal title track, all on one album. And "Axis: Bold as Love" came out later the same year. Unimaginable.
3. "Younger than Yesterday" - The Byrds
   After establishing themselves as something of a Bob Dylan colony, turning palatable versions of his songs into massive folk-rock hits, the Byrds found their own voices -- though they never stopped covering Dylan. "Yesterday" (the title is a reference to "My Back Pages," memorably covered here) is, for my money, the single best, most unified LP the band ever made. Despite the absence of founding member Gene Clark and the frustrations felt and caused by David Crosby, who would bail soon after the album came out, the Byrds of 1967 were able to move between the sly pop of "So You Wanna Be a Rock'n'Roll Star?" and "Have You Seen Her Face," and more heartfelt numbers like "Everybody's Been Burned" and the dreamy "Why?" alongside weirdo stuff like "Mind Gardens" and "CTA-102" (featuring a segment that takes place on an alien spaceship). The album is all over the place in the best way. Soon after, the Byrds went country.
4. "Forever Changes" - Love
   The quintessential L.A. album of a year that left its heart in San Francisco (with apologies to the Doors, who released their self-titled debut and "Strange Days" in '67). "Forever Changes" didn't come out until November, but it was recorded during the Summer of Love, and it sounds like an idyllic memory. This mellow, moody, startlingly wise record went down in commercial flames, but has remained one of the essential works of its time among people who know better.
5. "The Who Sell Out" - The Who
   Perversely, this album, and the commercial failure of its heroic single "I Can See For Miles," almost caused the Who to break up. If this had been the swansong, we'd have lost "Tommy" and "Quadrophenia," but Townshend and company would've gone out on a brilliant piece of mischief rock. From the phony radio jingles to the song-as-ad snippets, to the unheralded eruptions of rock and roll power ("Armenia City in the Sky," "I Can See For Miles") to the experimental dalliances ("Rael") that would pave the way for their later mastery -- and bombastery -- this was clearly a band trying to push things forward.
6. "Songs of Leonard Cohen" - Leonard Cohen
   People said he couldn't sing, but they were wrong. And against a pop backdrop of shouting voices and screeching guitars, Cohen's voice was the whisper that quieted the room. Occasionally mawkish production touches aside (I like a harpsichord as much as anyone, but...) "Songs of Leonard Cohen" is a perfect document of a serious poet (in the way that Dylan doesn't count as a poet because he's a songwriter) addressing himself to the times in a form that he felt would stand his poems the best chance of being heard -- and sung. The themes were current -- free love and its discontents, the search for a resonant identity in a world of infinite possibilities, the struggle between commitment and freedom -- but the songs are eternal. You know "Suzanne," but try "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye," "The Sisters of Mercy," "So Long, Marianne," "Winter Lady," "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong."
7. "Surrealistic Pillow" - Jefferson Airplane
   If ever a band characterized a city and a moment in time, Jefferson Airplane was San Francisco, 1967. Psychedelic, obviously. Bluesy, sure. But "Surrealistic Pillow" has some other, unnameable quality that arises from being part of a zeitgeist. Obviously, "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" are for the ages. But the lead-off track, "She Has Funny Cars," and closer "Plastic Fantastic Lover" bookend an album that verges between spooky, funny, sweet, and righteous. "Pillow" is a time capsule, more than any other record on this list. You can't really say it still sounds new, but it does still sound exactly like it sounded then.
8. "Disraeli Gears" - Cream
   It may be hard to believe, but Eric Clapton once made good music. I don't quite mean to say "once" as in "one time only," but if I did, this album is the only candidate. As part of the original power trio, Cream, Clapton shone as both a guitarist and a singer/songwriter, while having to defer on some level to bandmates Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce (to say nothing of producer Felix Pappalardi). "Disraeli Gears" is about as powerful as blues rock gets, and is motorized by the megahits "Sunshine of Your Love" and "Strange Brew." The real highlight, however, is "Tales of Brave Ulysses."
9. "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" - Pink Floyd
   Before they became truly ridiculous, Pink Floyd was brilliantly absurd. Under the rocky leadership of Syd Barrett, this psychedelic happening of a band was equally capable of carrying off 15-minute blues-rock freakouts ("Astronomy Domine") and surreal two-and-a-half-minute gems about a bicycle ("Bike"). "Piper At the Gates of Dawn" is the only existing record of Barrett firing on all cylinders before aggressive LSD intake and looming mental illness combined to render him first unreliable, and then basically vacant. It's also the most '60s-sounding record of the '60s that also sounds good.
10. "The Velvet Underground and Nico" - Velvet Underground
    In the event that you didn't get the message about the variety of the albums of summer, 1967, witness this blinding, white hot masterwork, the anti-Sgt. Pepper. "Produced" by Andy Warhol, who also did the cover, this album begins with the gentle breeze of "Sunday Morning," then explodes with tales of sex, drugs, gender confusion, crime, violence, sado-masochism, literary pretension and heart-stopping tenderness, played with low-strung, guttural intensity by musicians that sound like they can barely stand up. This combination of outré subject matter, gritty presentation and unmistakable vulnerability makes the songs, written by a young Lou Reed, stand out from much of the hippie love gurglings of other bands of the period, and in 10 years time, would give rise to punk, which is having its 30th birthday this summer. That, however, is another list.

Runners-up: "I Never Loved a Man The Way I Love You" Aretha Franklin; "Something Else" The Kinks; "Between the Buttons," "Their Satanic Majesties Request" The Rolling Stones; "Live In Europe," Otis Redding; "Moby Grape," Moby Grape; "The Doors" The Doors; "Smiley Smile" The Beach Boys; "Buffalo Springfield Again" Buffalo Springfield; "Deliver" Mamas and the Papas; "Headquarters," "Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd." The Monkees; "John Wesley Harding" Bob Dylan.

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