Just reading this thread post holiday.
It strikes me that both The Beatles and the Pistols were popularisers rather than innovators: ditto Bowie. As popularisers they were influential but they didn't really advance any musical forms - and as I posted above somewhere, I've always found the Beatles pleasant but dull - I've got the Red album, Revolver and Rubber Soul in the car and get really bored after 10 minutes or so. The Stones, for me, are a more interesting proposition as they synthesised different forms - so built in blues, country, soul, to the R and B starting point. They were cultural raiders to a point but did, for me, bring things together to make something new - much lke peak period Primal Scream did. I also prefer listening to the Stones - I'd take Begger's Banquet, Let in Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main Street over any Beatles record or the Pistols for that matter. Mind you, the Stones did have the ability to be toe curlingly aweful, usually as a result of Jaggers dreadful accents when singing.
I'd also argue for North American music over British for pretty much any chunk of time post 1945 for interest, innovation and general loveliness. The Beatles and the Stones v Dylan, The Byrds and the Velvets ( and early Jefferson Airplane!), The Ramones and Telvision over the Pistols and the Clash, Husker Du and Sonic Youth over the Gang of Four. Motown and Stax over most 60s British pop. Patti Smith's Horses and The Band by the Band are still my two fave "rock"records. Maybe in the early 80s and with late 80s Dance - Orbital, Massive Attack there was a parity -but otherwise the evil empire and Canada has had most of the best tunes. And some dreadful shit as well, of course. And, more impotantly, the north Americas have produced more genuinely innovative, challenging music.
Kevin