Frank, I think they wrote and recorded many songs that transcended the teen/pop idiom and stand with anybody's best songs, even (gasp!)Woody's.

ie Yesterday, Eleanor Rigby, A Day in the Life, Fool on the Hill, Blackbird, Something in the Way She Moves. Not earth-shaking revolutionary social commentary certainly, but very incisive comments on the nature of loneliness, love, and transcendence. The fact that they were popular and made piles of money should have no bearing on our judgement of them, and are secondary factors in any discussion of the quality or durability of their music.

Would you also dismiss Roger and the Byrds as a mere teen phenomenon whose work is unworthy of serious consideration?