Sgt. Pepper is the most influential album in the history of popular music.

First off, if you look down at the comments you will see my name. I apoligize, but I ask that the dropped round not affect your decision. With that said, I will return to the original arguments: Now realizing that influence has not been defined in this round, I will define it for clarification. Influence- "the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc. , of others. " Dictionary. com First off, my opponent does not sufficently respond to my arguments. Although he had a lot of arguments for his side, he did not respond to A: the Thriller argument and B: Rock and Rap having more influence. I will take a look at these first. First off, rock in the late 60's and 70's, and still somewhat today have compelled more people to do things than the Beatles ever had. After all, it's 'Drug, Sex, Rock and Roll,' and not 'Drugs, sex, and early 60's light folk rock type music'. Maybe that's not the best example, but the fact is, more people wanted to live the lifestyle that they see rockers as than the Beatles. It spawned loads of new fashion and a new sense of 'cool. ' Observe: (. http://en.wikipedia.org...) Indeed, rock and roll has inspired many more people to take drugs and have sex than the Beatles, whose most sexually explicit song was 'I want to hold your hand. ' One last thing about rock. It allows people like Bono to speak about AIDS in Africa, Starr to talk about war, and Hendrix to talk about government. Sgt. Pepper never had any of this stuff. Hence, these artists' songs are much more influential for people to sing about when protesting their respective things. People now don't even listen to Sgt. Pepper when they take LSD. They listen to Hendrix or Clapton. Also rap. Wow. Have I seen a bigger promoter of sterotypes, guns, sex, drugs, and bad music. According to the wikipedia article above, "While mainstream rock music was no longer able to shock or offend, new forms of music, particularly the punk scene in the late-1970s and rap and hip-hop in the late-1980s as well as some pop acts, emerged to fill this role. " "As the heyday was over rock lost a lot of its connection with sex while Rap, R&B and later on Pop have far more sexual content in there songs than rock and have also took over the idea of artists being sex symbols. " Again, rap is very influential to young people. It makes them feel like they need drugs and they are cool, along with sex and profanity. It promotes sterotypes and is frankly racist. This is where Thriller fits in. Thriller was the first major R&B album that set off the rap craze. While it doesn't seem anything like the rap today, it set off other artists to make music like it. It evolved and evolved until rap reached where it is today. THAT'S influence. I will now respond to some of my opponent's arguments- < > This whole paragraph should not matter. It does not matter how long or hard it was to make, we are questioning its IMPACT on society. < > I have enough offense to win this debate, so I conceed this argument and the fact that Sgt. Pepper was the most influential BEATLES' album. I am dropping this because it carries no weight in the round, seeing as how it is not called for by the resolution (being comparing the greatest beatles album). It also does not prove how influential the Beatles were to music. < > The arguments about Psycho and Prog rock do not matter. Those types of music are dead now. It was popular for about 5-10 years, and then it died. Plus, take a look at my next argument: <> First off, my opponent has absolutly NO proof that the artist's inspiration came from the beatles, let alone Sgt pepper. Second, taking the drugs influence the public, and the Rockers were the ones taking the drugs. The general public were very muched influenced by the ROCKERS, and not the Beatles, who rarely blantently mentioned drugs in their songs. < > While prog rock may be a great type of music as my opponent describes, he loses this argument by jumping to the conclusion that the Beatles were responsible for this. All I must say is that, 'the Beatles are not responsible for this. ' and the arguments must be weighed equally. In a wash argument, you negate.