Feature of "rendezvous" and "laissez-faire" / TUE 9-22-26 / Beetle amulet in ancient Egypt / Spy's identifier / Popular times for tacos / "Demon Slayer" or "Attack on Titan"

Constructor: Erik Agard

Relative difficulty: Easy

[2D: ___-Wan Kenobi]

THEME: SONGS IN / THE KEY OF LIFE (50A: With 52-Across, double album released on September 28, 1976, that spent 13 straight weeks at #1) — ❤️❤️❤️🎵🎵🎵❤️❤️❤️ An anniversary tribute to a classic double album by STEVIE WONDER (19A: 50/52-Across musician):

#1 songs:

• "SIR DUKE" (21A: #1 hit from 50/52-Across ("You can feel it all over")
• "I WISH" (37A: #1 hit from 50/52-Across ("Why did those days ever have to go?")

Word of the Day: SONGS IN / THE KEY OF LIFE (50A) —

Songs in the Key of Life is the eighteenth studio album by the American singer, songwriter and musician Stevie Wonder. A triple album, it was released on September 28, 1976, by Tamla Records, a division of Motown. The album is regarded as the culmination of Wonder's "classic period" of recording, which began in 1972 with Music of My Mind.

By 1974, Wonder was one of the most successful figures in popular music; his previous albums Music of My Mind (1972), Talking Book (1972), Innervisions (1973), and Fulfillingness' First Finale (1974) were back-to-back critical successes. However, by March 1975, Wonder seriously considered quitting the music industry and emigrating to Ghana to aid children with disabilities. Plans for a farewell concert had already begun when Wonder changed his mind and signed a new contract with Motown on August 5, 1975. This outlined a seven-year, seven-album deal, with full artistic control. This deal included $13 million up front, a potential bonus of up to $20 million, 20% of the royalties, and ownership of the publishing rights. At the time, it was the biggest recording deal in history.

Songs in the Key of Life was released as a double LP with a four-song bonus EP. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming only the third album to achieve that feat, and the first by an American artist. Both the lead single "I Wish" and follow-up single "Sir Duke" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The album spent thirteen consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard 200, becoming the album with the most weeks at number one during the year, and was the second-best-selling album of 1977 in the US. In 2005, the album was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), indicating sales of 5 million units for a double album.

The album won Album of the Year at the 19th Grammy Awards and is the best-selling and most critically acclaimed album of Wonder's career. It is now widely regarded as one of the greatest albums in the history of popular music, and many musicians have remarked on its influence on their own work. It was voted number 89 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums and ranked number 4 on Rolling Stone's 2020 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In 2002, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and in 2005 it was inducted into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress, which deemed it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". (wikipedia)

• • •

Look at this puzzle! Isn't she lovely? Knocks me off my feet. I wish every puzzle made me this happy. If you did not like this, I think you need to have a talk with God. Or better yet, just listen to the album. Front to back, all the way through. Then get back to me. True, it can't improve your experience of a puzzle you've already finished, but it can improve your day and your heart and your soul. Give it a shot. Once I got those first two themers today, I was beaming, and the beaming never stopped. One of my favorite constructors makes a puzzle about one of my favorite albums, and it's not even my birthday? Well, it is my daughter's birthday (happy birthday, kiddo), so ... close enough. I cannot believe that just yesterday, on my best friend's birthday, I mentioned that she (Shaun) and I, and her then-fiancé (Steve) saw STEVIE WONDER on New Year's Eve thirty-two years ago at the Fox Theater in Detroit, and that we were lucky enough to score tickets last week to see him again, later this year, at the same venue. What I didn't mention was that the name of this upcoming tour is ... The "SONGS IN / THE KEY OF LIFE Performances— Fiftieth Anniversary Tour." 

Last week, all four of us (Shaun, Steve, my wife, me), got online and tried to buy tickets to one of the two Detroit shows as soon as they went on sale. Once the sale goes live, you get (randomly?) put into a queue. My number was 4,000 something, which seemed horrible, but was actually much better than most. (I later saw screenshots from people trying to score tix to the show at MSG in NYC that showed their place in the queue somewhere in the 600,000s). But 4,000 wasn't good enough to get all the seats we needed. Luckily, Shaun drew a number closer to 1,000 and so we're going! I spent that whole day stunned at our good luck. Annnnnyway, Stevie rules, SONGS IN / THE KEY OF LIFE is perfect, and this puzzle is smooth as hell even without the Stevie content. My only complaint is that this should've run next Monday, on the exact day of the 50th anniversary. Please don't tell me "but this is not a Monday puzzle." It's very easy, and anyway ... Monday, Tuesday, close enough. No one's gonna be mad that their Monday puzzle has Stevie in it. I know this grid has TUESDAYS baked into it, but anniversary puzzles should appear on the days they're commemorating if at all possible. Then again, the fact that this puzzle got made at all is a miracle, so I'll take it on whatever day you wanna give it to me.

This puzzle seems to have been made especially easy, perhaps to account for the folks who will not be familiar with the Stevie content. But easy certainly doesn't mean boring. You get those little 6-7-8 stacks in the SW and NE corners, and then the 7-8 colonnades in the NW and SE. CODE NAME, "I'LL GET IT!," well-earned FANFARE (43D: Celebratory hoopla). All that and a SILENT Z, in addition to the Steviestravaganza!? I don't have any complaints. I did balk at ROOFS, but nope, that's the correct plural alright. I wrote the [Nail polish brand] in as ESI ... which is, in fact, a nail polish, if you throw another "S" and "E" in there.

I wrote in WRY instead of DRY (18D: Like some humor and runs) (clearly didn't see the "runs" part), but I think that's it as far as screw-ups go. Oh, and I had to wait for crosses on ANIME (27D: "Demon Slayer" or "Attack on Titan"). Those titles ring a bell, but clearly not a loud enough bell.

Bullets:

• 30A: Resident of Africa's fourth-largest country (LIBYAN) — oh look, another little mistake that I made. I had the -YAN part and wrote in KENYAN. Kenya is actually the 23rd-largest country in Africa. You know, in case that ever comes up.
• 53D: Ivy League school in New Haven (YALE) — once again, happy birthday to the girl, who turns 26 today. I wasn't going to tell you Yet Again that she's currently getting her MFA at the David Geffen School of Drama at YALE (Technical Design and Production), but the puzzle kind of forced my hand, sorry.
• 28D: Contents of plastic sleeves or jewel cases, informally (CDS) — I've got one of the SONGS IN / THE KEY OF LIFE CDS in the car and the other in my little Bose CD player / clock radio near my comfy coffee chair in the library. First thing I'm gonna do when I get downstairs is hit "Play."
• 61A: Whistlers in the kitchen (KETTLES) — speaking of, gotta go get my whistler in the kitchen fired up so I can have my coffee. Actually, my kettle doesn't whistle. It's one of them fancy kettles that hits whatever temperature you want and just stays there. Got a little temp read-out and everything. It is black and sleek and beautiful and my best friend in the morning. Yes, I love the cats, but they are takers and they know it. The kettle simply gives. 

That's all for today. See you next time. And I hope you give the album a spin today. It really is a thing of beauty.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Big letters in home security / MON 9-21-26 / Leader of an 1831 revolt against slavery / Album for which Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer Prize / Hardwood whose bark is sometimes used as paper / Simple two-player card game / Sometimes-floral organic compound / People of SW Britain

Constructor: Alexander Liebeskind

Relative difficulty: Easy (solved Downs-only)

THEME: FORTIES (39A: Decade of W.W. II ... or a homophonic hint to 17-, 23-, 50- and 57-Across) — four-word phrases where each word starts with "T"

Theme answers:

• TOO TIRED TO THINK (17A: Mentally pooped)
• TEACH TO THE TEST (23A: Deliberately give instruction in a way that targets an exam)
• TO TELL THE TRUTH (50A: "If I'm being honest ...")
• TAKES TWO TO TANGO (57A: "A fight requires more than one person")

Word of the Day: DAMN. (14A: Album for which Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer Prize) —

Damn (stylized as DAMN.) is the fourth studio album by the American rapper Kendrick Lamar, released on April 14, 2017, by Top Dawg Entertainment, Aftermath Entertainment, and Interscope Records. Lamar assembled numerous artists and producers to create the album, including executive producer and Top Dawg Entertainment label head Anthony "Top Dawg" Tiffith, Sounwave, DJ Dahi, Mike Will Made It, and Ricci Riera, as well as further production contributions from James Blake, Steve Lacy, BadBadNotGood, Greg Kurstin, the Alchemist, and 9th Wonder, among others. It features guest appearances from Rihanna, Zacari, and U2.

The album has been categorized as conscious hip-hop, but also incorporates elements of trap, contemporary R&B, and pop. Prior to the album's release, Lamar released a promotional single, "The Heart Part 4". In the months that followed, Lamar released three singles from the album; "Humble" was released in March 2017, "Loyalty" in June 2017, and "Love" in October 2017, the first of which became Lamar's first number-one single on the US Billboard Hot 100 as a lead artist.

Damn received widespread acclaim from critics, with many naming the album one of the best albums of 2017 and the decade. The album topped the US Billboard 200 with 603,000 album-equivalent units earned in its first week and topped the chart of Canada while reaching number two in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. It has since been certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in May 2018 and was the Billboard Year-End number one album of 2017. The album earned Lamar the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music, the first time an artist outside of the classical and jazz genres received the honor. It also earned the Best Rap Album at the 2018 Grammy Awards. In 2020, Damn was ranked 175th on Rolling Stone's updated list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". (wikipedia)

• • •

I know what the puzzle means by FORTIES ("four tees")—each phrase has four words and each word in that phrase starts with "T"—but the fact that two of these theme answers actually have five "T"s really puts this puzzle in the D.O.A. category for me. Your revealer clue says that it's a "homophonic hint" to the theme answers, but it is literally inaccurate. I guess "hint" is supposed to give the puzzle some latitude, but "four tees" is what the puzzle is telling me and "four tees" is just wrong. Factually wrong. So there's that. There's a lot of word repetition in the theme (four "TO"s, two "THE"s), but that's probably to be expected with commonish phrases. I don't think TAKES TWO TO TANGO works (well) without the "IT" at the beginning; the clue is a complete sentence, so the answer should be also. But this is a lesser problem than the five-"T" problem. The theme answers are all solid phrases, and the revealer has the requisite simple-punniness that is usually all a Monday puzzle requires. But the execution, as I say, feels fumbled. Even the clue on the revealer feels phoned-in. First of all, if you're referring to the decade, it's The FORTIES. And second ... that's all you've got for (The) FORTIES—that WWII happened then? Yes, it's the defining event of the (first half of the) decade, but [Decade of W.W. II] still feels unimaginative (also, WAR is already in the grid). And then there's the fill, which is pretty rough throughout. I love NAT TURNER as an answer (35D: Leader of an 1831 revolt against slavery), but that's offset (for me) by "I'M ON A DIET"—I find the whole idea of not eating because you're "on a diet" depressing. Actually, it's the whole diet industry that is so off-putting to me. Predatory. Plus, "going on a diet" doesn't really work. So ... with the long answers canceling each other out, quality-wise, there's just the short fill, which is full of stuff it seems like you'd try Very Hard to keep out of any puzzle, esp. an easy early-week grid: ADT, GAIUS, EIRE, SES, OAKEN, O'ER, NENES, ETAT. Not a big fan of DEE, ESTER, XES, NAM, or RADIO AD, either, and without a Bill Withers clue, "USE ME" is also suboptimal.

The Downs-only solve was thorny only in a couple of spots. First, ADT, which are letters I know from seeing them on signs in front of some houses, but they aren't letters I can remember (clearly) (1D: Big letters in home security). That coupled with the difficulty of parsing "I'M ON A DIET" made the NW a little tricky. Had a little more trouble in the middle, where all I wanted for [N.Y.C. subway letters] was IRT or BQE [update—BQE has zero to do with the subway, just three letter related to NYC transportation]. MTA applies to more than the subway, so it didn't occur to me. And right next door, BIRCH was not a wood I could come up with easily, not with that clue (33D: Hardwood whose bark is sometimes used as paper). And right next door to that, there was EIRE, which I had as ERIN because of course I did, classic kealoa*. The last trouble spot was where I finished up, in the SW. Specifically, EXTREME was hard for me to see from its clue (43D: Like skydiving or cliff-diving). EXTREME compared to what? As an adjective modifying "sport," it might be apt, but just calling those activities "EXTREME" seems really vague. So I needed all the surrounding answers before I was finally able to see it. But I was never really in danger of getting stuck-stuck today. 

Bullets:

• 14A: Album for which Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer Prize (DAMN.)  — damn, that's a pretty advanced clue for a Monday. I never saw it, of course, but I love it ... I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say that for many regular solvers, that answer was probably not a gimme.
• 11D: First name of Julius Caesar (GAIUS) — another name that was probably not a gimme for many. This one I knew, but I should know it. I mean, I just (literally just) taught the end of Inferno, the bottom of hell, where Satan is eternally chewing not only on Judas, but also on Brutus and Cassius—two of the leaders in the plot to assassinate ... Julius Caesar (Cassius's first name: also GAIUS). I don't think Dante uses the name GAIUS, but I had enough classical Latin during grad school that somehow GAIUS stuck. It's not a name I'd use in a puzzle unless I really needed it.
• 5D: Simple two-player card game (WAR) — UNO flickered across my mind, but only because it's a three-letter card game. WAR is much more definitively "two-player."

• 66A: Spanish babies (NENES) — also, Hawaiian gooses. Sorry, geeses.
• 37D: People of SW Britain (WELSH) — first thought: CORNISH. Didn't fit. Here, in red, is Cornwall, which, as you can see, is even souther and wester than Wales.

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Happy Earth, Wind & Fire Day, which also means: Happy Birthday to my best friend, Shaun. We met in the first weeks of grad school and ... yeah, changed my life. Instant lifelong friend. Thirty-five years now. Such a weird, rare thing. Can't wait to see Stevie Wonder with her (and our spouses) in December, in Detroit, at The Fox, where we saw him on New Year's Eve thirty-two years ago. But for today, we'll stick with Earth, Wind & Fire 🔥

["Do you remember...?"]

*kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] => ATON or ALOT, ["Git!"] => "SHOO" or "SCAT," etc. 

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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