Which albums were you trying out of interest?
I'm not much good at talking about music, and certainly not at trying to justify it on a class basis or something. And I have to go to bed. But I feel like trying anyway, so here is a first attempt which I will gladly expand upon tomorrow evening if you find anything worth arguing about or blowing to pieces, rather than just being left with a feeling of 'so fucking what?' once you have read this waffle.
They had many different phases so I'll need to break it down, in approximate but not perfect order:
Start with stuff that speaks of a certain phase of being young, augmented with artistic pretensions, the mad art mind, and then certain drugs. Not an experience everyone goes through by any means, but arguably more people as time went on, certainly not limited only to the private schoolboys.
Moving on to something spacey at a time when space exploration & space rock was not banal, eg the actual moon landings which again did not require latin or a degree to capture the imagination.
Then a fair bit more guilt, angst, regret and the beginnings of mid-life crisis and navel-gazing. Maybe speaks to some peoples souls only in the cheesiest and most banal use of the word soul, but still something to some people that is greater than the sum of its cheese.
Then a far greater amount of direct political anger and disgust. Albeit rather narrow and self-indulgent at times, eg in places more likely to directly speak to those of a certain generation who may have lost their daddy in the war, but still reaching out beyond that in places.
That stuff eventually pushed too much and too woefully, and with too much megalomania, at the expense of the overall music in the end, leading to the fracturing of the group. And then stuff that I mostly havent bothered listening to because I assumed it was mostly Gilmore middle-of-the-road-mongous in the end, with perhaps a few exceptions.
There is plenty in all of these phases worth sneering at, but that doesnt make it totally worthless or irrelevant. It might be to you, which is fine. But I am curious as to why you even tried given that I bet you know its got multiple ingredients you are likely to be allergic to which can easily blot out any of the aspects which may have otherwise stood at least the tiniest chance of otherwise resonating very faintly with you.
Personally as I've never found enough music with politics in it to quench my thirst, I am prepared to tolerate the cheesy guitar aspects of Roger Waters solo stuff and some of Pink Floyds songs in order to enjoy singing about the bravery of being out of range etc.
