My point is that it is still just pop music, albeit very great pop music, but people treat it as if it were something more.
I don't think you can judge the significance of certain music simply by the genre from which it comes. I think the assumption that classical or jazz are automatically superior to pop or rock music is nothing more than snobbery. If any type of music is to be judged, as more than just music, it has to go beyond just the consideration of the artistic makeup of the music itself. I think the most important factor is how that music affected it's generation in it's own time. How it influenced other artists, how it weaved its way into the fabric of peoples lives and imprinted itself onto their psyche, how that music continues to affect people in later generations. One could just as correctly say that Bach was after all just classical music, or that Miles Davis was just jazz. I think anyone who attempts to argue that these forms of music are inherently superior to modern music is making a flawed preposition.