In 1969, the seminal Tommy was released by The Who. Track Records, The Who’s own brand, in collaboration with Polydoor was the UK record company, and in the United States Decca was. I have a mint Decca one. It was billed as the first rock opera, but it actually was not. There had been at least a couple before Tommy came to us.
Not counting the composition effort (by far the bulk of it by Pete Townshend), it took the better part of year to record, edit, and redub the work. This was Kit Lambert, their producer, at his finest, and also extremely fine efforts by all of the band and the production and engineering staff. It is truly a masterpiece.