PostWar and a spectacularly original long-playing record

I am reading PostWar by Tony Judt and enjoying it immensely. I don't don't know much history so I implicitly believe what he says. But I just came across a puzzling quote:

the European Sixties were always Eurocentric. Even the 'Hippy Revolution' never quite crossed the Atlantic. At most it washed up on the shores of Great Britain and Holland, leaving behind some sedimentary evidence in the form of a more developed drug culture than elsewhere -- and one spectacularly original long-playing record.

What is he talking about? I googled and found that other people were puzzled by the same thing and had emailed Mr. Judt. He replied that he meant Sergeant Pepper. I know this was a huge critical and commercial success at the time, but, if we look back from our current vantage point we can see that Revolver was better. Now of course I no longer trust anything Tony Judt says. And I haven't even got to the bits about Thatcher yet.