Albums similar to middle Beatles era, Pet Sounds and/or Odessey & Oracle

The Rolling Stones
Their Satanic Majesties Request Released December 8, 1967

This comes on like The Incredible String Band & The Beatles having an acid orgy in a creepy gothic castle. Also very influenced by recent Pink Floyd records. It might be the Rolling Stones most underrated album ever.

To be fair is to add, that in The Stones, the psychedelic elements aren’t so well constructed and applied as in The Beatles: The band of Liverpool’s incursions into dreamy and psychotropically altered sounds were more convinced and intense than The Stones’.

But The Stones had the real rock ‘n roll spirit in its purest essence. The Stones never could make an “A day in the life” or a “Strawberry fields” or an "I am the walrus"; so it is a cul-de-sac.

Artist The Byrds
Younger Than Yesterday
Released February 20, 1967

An outstanding short opus from the Byrds. Although released early in 1967, this is a very 1966-style album -- much more Revolver than Sgt. Pepper. There are some traces of psychedelic sounds here -- most notably on David Crosby's atonal tone poem "Mind Gardens", which sounds like a pretty weird trip; there are space sounds on the otherwise somewhat fluffy "CTA-102" and some experimentation on "Thoughts and Words", but mostly the album seems pretty traditional in sound. While "Thoughts and Words" is a bit too obviously stolen from George Harrison's "Think for Yourself" from the Beatles' Rubber Soul. Also another Beatles influenced "Have You Seen Her Face" sounds like it could have been recorded on Rubber Soul. One of the most consistent and strongest albums in the Byrds' discography, and also an important example of psychedelic/folk crossover. Absolutely essential.

Artist The Pretty Things
S.F. Sorrow Released December 1968

With S.F. Sorrow, it really is all about how you listen to it. On the one hand, there's not really anything on here that you won't have already heard from any number of other albums from the same era, be they Sgt. Peppers, or The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, or Tommy, or Odessey & Oracle, or Piper At The Gates of Dawn, Forever Changes at a stretch. On the other, it's a very easy album to listen to, grasp, and enjoy for that very reason. On the one hand, the concept is lofty, ambitious, a little silly, occasionally derailed by painfully obvious references like 'Amerik' and 'Windenburg', and it doesn't really come through unless you have some kind of supplementary material to help you understand it (like the liner notes - handy, that). On the other hand, you can easily ignore it because of this and just enjoy the songs as stand-alones; also, you're spared the painful storytelling filler that makes Tommy such a chore to listen to. The combination of voices and multi-instrumentation including percussion breaks puts this album on par with Sgt. Peppers &Odyssey & Oracle. a must hear for any 60's 'psychedelic' fan.