[GerateWohl]

Take Goldsmith who quality wise is more than up to Williams but has surely less of these “classics”. His Star Trek theme might be his top classic everyone knows and that probably owes a lot to Star Trek being famous and also being re-used for the TNG series.

Just remember, Ave Satani! was even in the pop charts at the time.

Concerning quality of Williams and Goldsmith we really have to differentiate. Same quality when it comes to musical skills? Probably. Same quality when it comes to inventive contributions to the genre of film music? Probably yes.
But there are reasons apart from the choice of movies why Williams is in general more popular than Goldsmith.

First, I believe that Williams took much more care about the representation of his music outside of the movies.
Secondly, Williams is obviously more a traditionalist when it comes to orchestral music. And that prevented him from some of Goldsmith’s lapses of taste in the 80s and 90s when it comes to sound and sound colors (even though Williams also has his share of weird experiments like Heartbeeps John Goldfarb).
And thirdly, I claim that Williams’ popular themes are overall better than Goldsmith’s. Melody and composition wise. No doubt, Goldsmith has great themes. And I would say, he sometimes was a little careless giving away the best ones for insignificant scenes or movies. But after all this carelessness is the biggest point that separates him for me from Williams.