Cuban dance style / TUE 7--21-26 / 2023 double-platinum Chappell Roan record / Reactions akin to "OMG!" / chocolate bar's pronouns in a corny joke / Awe-inspiring solar phenomenon / Plumbing fixture found under the sink

Constructor: Kenneth Cortes

Relative difficulty: Easy (oversized at 16x15)

THEME: GO OUT WITH A BANG (34A: Finish flamboyantly ... like 17-, 28-, 43- and 56-Across?) — familiar phrases that end explosions:

Theme answers:

• "BADA-BING, BADA-BOOM!" (17A: "Easy-peasy!")
• SANDBLAST (28A: Clean with a rough spray)
• STARBURST (43A: Colorful taffy candy brand)
• "RED WINE SUPERNOVA" (56A: 2023 double-platinum Chappell Roan record)

Word of the Day: HABANERA (9D: Cuban dance style) —

 

Contradanza (also called contradanza criolla, danza, danza criolla, or habanera) is the Spanish and Spanish-American version of the contradanse, which was an internationally popular style of music and dance in the 18th century, derived from the English country dance and adopted at the court of France. Contradanza was brought to America and there took on folkloric forms that still exist in Bolivia, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Panama and Ecuador.

In Cuba during the 19th century, it became an important genre, the first written music to be rhythmically based on an African rhythm pattern and the first Cuban dance to gain international popularity, the progenitor of danzón, mambo and cha-cha-cha, with a characteristic "habanera rhythm" and sung lyrics.

Outside Cuba, the Cuban contradanza became known as the habanera – the dance of Havana – and that name was adopted in Cuba itself subsequent to its international popularity in the later 19th century, though it was never so called by the people who created it. (wikipedia)

• • •

I wanna say "this was a blast," 'cause, you know, pun, but I'm not sure it rose to "blast" levels. It was certainly enjoyable, though, and very smooth—never got tiresome, despite a preponderance of short answers. There's some mild confusion about whether the ends of the theme answers are explosions themselves (supernova) or merely the sounds made by explosions (boom), and there's a certain sad cessation of the "B" party when you get to the final themer (boom blast bang burst ... supernova?), but all in all, this is clever and creative work. The only difficulty today was figuring out how to spell BADA-BING, BADA-BOOM, since it's a thing I only ever hear, and then remembering the title of the Chappell Roan song (which some of you probably can't "remember" since you didn't know it in the first place—I'm guessing that for a lot of people, that title is going to be the biggest struggle in today's puzzle by far). I actually know the song, but because the clue said "record" (ambiguous!) I was thinking ALBUMS, and so the only thing in my head was ... is it PINK PONY CLUB? No, that's another song! Her one album is titled The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess—I think it was used in a recent clue for ROAN, actually. I'm not exactly in the right age demo for her music, but I generally like it all the same. "OH GROW UP!" I will not.

And now, the history of musical supernovas: a three-part journey. First, there was Liz Phair, who gave us a simple, straightforward "Supernova":

Two years later, Oasis came along and added alcohol:

It took a while, but after nearly three decades, Chappell Roan decided to swap out Oasis's champagne for red wine, and here we are:

There wasn't anything particularly tricky about today's puzzle, outside the theme. I didn't know HABANERA (probably had it in the grid as HABANERO at first) and I wanted "THAT HURT!" to be "THAT HURTS!," which was pretty easily ... adaptable. Had to wait for the Japanese city to develop—got the first few letters and thought NAGANO before NAGASAKI (probably because NAGANO appears in the crossword more often). The only thing I know about NAGASAKI is the nuclear attack, so it's nice to get a different angle on it here (6D: Japanese city that's home to the Chinese Sofukuji Temple). I liked all the animals roaming around the grid—there's some LABS and another DOG and a HISSing cat, plus a BIRD and, and then bam (boom, bang!), out of nowhere: a herd of RHINOS! (46D: Heavyweight beasts, familiarly).


Bullets:

• 21A: Awe-inspiring solar phenomenon (AURORA) — I didn't know it qualified as an awe-inspiring solar phenomenon without the "Borealis" after it.
• 43A: Colorful taffy candy brand (STARBURST) — You know, I ate STARBURST throughout my childhood and occasionally in my adulthood and I never thought of them as "taffy." I'm not disputing the description. It's just ... taffy occupied a completely different slot in my brain's candy categorization. You'd see it pulled at the fair, or else get it in individually wax paper-wrapped little pieces. Also, I think of taffy as way chewier than STARBURST. Salt water taffy, that's what I'm thinking of.
• 39D: "___/she" (chocolate bar's pronouns in a corny joke) ("HER") — is this the corny joke? This clue right here? I guess I can imagine a chocolate lover saying "my pronouns are Hershey." My experience is that lots of people don't exactly have a sense of humor about pronoun jokes. I think this is a non-boring way to clue HER, so I'm for it.
• 56D: World of Warcraft, e.g., in brief (RPG) — minor trouble here in the SW as I wrote in WOW here ("WoW" = a common abbreviation for World of Warcraft). I then wrote in WELPS for 63A: Reactions akin to "OMG!" (GASPS). "Welp" is far more a resigned exclamation than it is an "OMG!" equivalent. Even after changing WOW to RPG (role-playing game). I wanted GULPS before GASPS.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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