IT WAS 50 YEARS AGO TODAY …

If the Beach Boys’ classic album Pet Sounds, which turned 50 in 2016, set the table for rock music reinvention in 1966, the Beatles’ seminal Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band served up the main course. In 1967, the Fab Four, inspired by the musical innovations of Pet Sounds (itself a response to the Beatles’ Rubber Soul) experimented with tempo, tune, rhythm and sound in ways a rock band never had. Fifty years on, Universal Music marks the milestone with Sgt. Pepper anniversary edition CD/vinyl packages including newly mixed audio, a slew of unreleased recordings, promo films, a documentary about the album, a 50-page booklet and more. Decades after it changed popular music, Sgt. Pepper’s topped Rolling Stone magazine’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” – one slot ahead of Pet Sounds. —MC