Music Babble

Already said plenty about "The Martian Chronicles" but to reiterate, I'd describe the tone of most of the stories as being akin to "The Twilight Zone" than simply writing it off as "50s cornball pulp". I actually don't disagree with most of your other descriptions but most of what you seem to find lame, I find endearing. And like Oliver, I first read the book at age 12 which is probably the ideal age.

Can't believe you rewatched "The Batman", especially this soon after seeing it in theaters. You're really a sucker for punishment aren't you?

Yeah "Flowers" doesn't really count as an album and would have been better if they're included more non-LP tracks from the era (like "Dandelion" or "We Love You") and instead of stuff from the US versions of "Aftermath" and "Between The Buttons" (which are the superior versions) but it's still pretty good for what it is.

"Music of My Mind" > "Talking Book" > "Key of Life" IMO

Soft Machine's "Volume 2" is an actual suite (they'd perform the whole album in concert at the time of its release) rather than simply a bunch of unrelated musical fragments stitched together like "The Faust Tapes". No surprise you're not a big fan but still feel like you'll probably prefer "IV" to the other stuff. Just realized that the recently released a "lost" album from '74 (1 year after "IV") called "Punkt"- anyone heard it?