Robert Fraser (art dealer) first met John Lennon. Fraser art-directed the cover for The Beatles' 1967 LP "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" – he dissuaded the group from using the original design, a psychedelic artwork created by the design collective The Fool, instead suggesting the pop artist, Peter Blake, who created the famous collage cover design. Fraser also gave McCartney a small painting of an apple by René Magritte which is believed to have been the inspiration for the name and logo of the Beatles' record company, Apple Records. It was also through Fraser that Richard Hamilton was selected to design the poster
Progressive pop of author Simon Philo, the Beatles' progressive pop was exemplified in the double A-sided single "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane" (1967). In a further example of the reciprocal influences between themselves and the Beach Boys, the Beatles demonstrated "paradoxical lyrical content matched by music that was at once 'young' and 'old', rock and Tin Pan Alley, LSD and cocoa, progressive and nostalgic" – all features that were shared on "Sgt. Pepper's". Musicologist Allan Moore writes: "At that time, "Sgt. Pepper" seemed to mark rock music's coming of age ... Now, of course, with jaded memories, we think of it