[mattejade]

> At the time, there was nobody to compare them to.

Why do you assume this? When Sgt. Peppers came out in 1967 -- which we now mythologize as a revolutionary step -- that same year you had equally adventurous records by Pink Floyd, The Byrds, Love, Cream, The Doors, Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, the 13th Floor Elevators, and on and on.

If you draw yourself back to the early 60s, then there's still nothing about their music that other artists weren't making. If you want to say that they made the "rock band" thing happen, then that's highly debatable because there were an absolute plethora of garage rock (and surf rock) bands around at the time, and I'm sure they were compared endlessly to The Beach Boys. But even if they did make the "rock band" thing happen, that's a result of their popularity at the time and not necessarily whether their music was particularly unique.