"Everyone" did their "Sgt Pepper..."-type album in 67-68:Love did "Forever Changes", Zombies did "Odyssey and Oracle", Hollies did, Pretty Things did "SF Sorrow", the Who did "Sell out" (yes, it qualifies IMO), Tim Buckley did "Goodbye and Hello" etc. and yet, only Rolling Stones get the "They ripped off Sgt Peppers"-diss for an album that doesn't even sound that much like "...Pepper" (Not saying those other albums sound like Pepper too much either BTW).

While the critical reception of "Sgt Peppers..." had a lot to do with those albums becoming the norm for a short while, the fact is that these ideas were in the "air" at the time and some of those records were even started on before "SGt Pepper" came out. Also Beatles themselves were of course inspired by "Pet Sounds" and Frank Zappa's "Freak Out"-album. And Donovan had made "flowery" and "twee" albums like "Sunshine Superman" and "mellow Yellow" before the release of "Sgt Pepper..." as well...

Anyway, several of those records are considered classics today and people don't hold the fact that they may have been inspired by "Sgt. Pepper..." against them. The Stones-album in that vein is not too good but not bad either-several really nice psych tracks on there IMO like "She's a rainbow" and "2000 light years from home".

And I always prefered Stones ridiculed "We Love You"-single over "All you need is love" despite the latter being the obvious influence as well...