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High-end private jet, familiarly / TUE 8-18-26 / Academy Award-winning tune from "La La Land" / Singer Kahan with the 2026 #1 album "The Great Divide" / Eponym of a chess rating system / Mario has a red "M" on his / Sarcastic title girl of 1990s-2000s MTV / Utah skiing destination / Dickens villain
Tuesday, August 18, 2026
Constructor: Jeremy Venook
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- "MOONLIGHT SONATA" (17A: Classic Beethoven piano piece)
- "CITY OF STARS" (29A: Academy Award-winning tune from "La La Land")
- "SWEET DREAMS" (45A: 1983 Eurythmics hit whose full title includes "(Are Made of This)")
Noah Berkenkamp Kahan (/kɑːn/ KAHN; born January 1, 1997) is an American singer-songwriter. His breakthrough single, "Hurt Somebody", achieved gold status in the United States and charted in multiple international markets. The single and EP of the same name preceded the release of his debut album, Busyhead (2019). Within five years, two more albums came out: I Was / I Am (2021) and Stick Season (2022), the latter became his mainstream commercial breakthrough. It led to his nomination in 2023 for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. In 2026, his fourth album The Great Divide was released and achieved record-breaking streaming and vinyl sales for a No. 1 rock album debut on the Billboard 200. That preceded The Great Divide Tour, his first stadium tour. // Kahan was born in Strafford, Vermont, where he grew up on a tree farm. His father, Josh Kahan, taught him to play guitar while his mother, Lauri Berkenkamp, who wrote parenting guides for a living, taught him to write. His father is Jewish and his mother is Christian. He says that his Jewish roots play a large part in his identity. [...] In October 2020, Kahan began posting viral TikTok videos showcasing the first verse of what would become the hit single "Stick Season". Over the next two years, he uploaded more snippets of the song and teased other songs from his forthcoming third studio album, leading Stick Season to become viral before it was even released.[6] On July 8, 2022, he finally released the full version of the song to the public. Kahan says "Stick Season" is the kind of song he wanted to write, moving away from his pop heavy projects in the past to a folk centric project. He released the single "Northern Attitude" prior to the album's release. // On October 14, 2022, Kahan released his third studio album, the 14-track Stick Season, which was produced by Gabe Simon. The album debuted at number 14 on the Billboard 200, his first appearance on the chart[17] launching him into mainstream success and helping make him a recognizable figure within the music world.
• • •
ELO and ALOE before we ever get out of the tiny NW corner—that did not herald goodness. Two initialisms right after that (SEC, UNICEF) didn't make me any more optimistic. URIAH ISH ATTA ESAU NATL OFUSE ISAW AMA EUR ... the puzzle just limps lacklusterly along, with only the themers to perk it up. HYSTERIA gave the grid some juice (9D: Madness), and DEWDROPS has a certain alliterative sweetness (39D: Morning condensation), but otherwise, it's a snooze. I guess "BITE ME!'s got some sass, but I never did take to that expression (which now feels dated, somehow) (33D: "Oh, buzz off"). The clue on G-SIX is ... ??? (52D: High-end private jet, familiarly) ... I assume it used to be a governmental alliance clue but then someone thought "hey, we don't talk about the ultra-rich enough" and decided to make it a private jet clue? That's called taking regrettable fill and making it regrettabler. The G6 was the six largest countries in the EU, but then Britain (famously, extremely smartly, with great foresight) left, and the name changed to the E5. Not sure why they changed from "G" ("Group of") to "E" ("European Group of"), but there you are. I suppose G-SIX could also be a Bingo call. But no, it looks like all former clues for GSIX referred to the (now former) European alliance. I understand wanting to update the clue, but ... a private jet? In this economy? Hard pass.
Bullets:
- 39A: Sarcastic title girl of 1990s-2000s MTV (DARIA) — I watched every episode of this, I think, and still hesitated a bit trying to process the phrase "Sarcastic title girl"; I wonder what kind of cultural legs DARIA has. What's the age break? Seems like an extremely Gen-X / Millennial show. Not sure how familiar it is to older / younger people.
- 50A: It has its x's and y's (ALGEBRA) — I don't understand what this clue is doing with its phrasing, what expression it's playing on. Are x's and y's supposed be like "ups and downs?" I get the x and y part, I can see why ALGEBRA is the answer, but the whimsical phrasing here is lost on me.
- 27D: What gossipers and tall buildings are full of (STORIES) — I don't really like "riddles," but this clue at least slowed me down and made me think for a little today—probably the toughest answer for me besides the La La Land song and the private jet, which I just didn't know. Oh, and NOAH Kahan, whose name has been floating around the periphery of my entertainment world all year, I just couldn't retrieve it, which made that SE corner tough, as 67A: Person regularly sought out for advice was somehow not GURU ... but GO-TO (not loving it as a noun, but OK)
- 2D: Eponym of a chess rating system (ELO) — really gotta hate music and fun and life not to go with the band every time here. If you must use ELO (again), please just remind me of the great music. Chess, shmess, zzzzz:
[gotta love a song that just randomly breaks into French]
- 60D: Mario has a red "M" on his (HAT) — what are we doing here? Do we not get enough Marioverse clues without having to torture the clues for perfectly ordinary things into Mario form? If you want to take the HAT somewhere pop cultury, at least branch out, be creative. Yet Another Mario Clue is not the way.
That's all for today. See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
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90 comments:
Easy. Dense theme, not a lot of names. Liked it better than @Rex did. On a personal note, I finally remembered that director Johnson (38A) is RIAN, not RyAN.
* * * _ _
Overwrites:
At the 60D red "M" Mario clue, I guessed wrong onthe 50/50 cAp vs. HAT.
After considering Gran for the 67A advisor, I settled on Guru before GO TO.
WOEs:
Sarcastic MTV girl DARIA at 39A.
GSIX as a jet at 52D (I know it as the Group of Six economic world powers)
Singer NOAH Kahan at 64A.
Liked it, but I found it easy because of straightforward cluing. Only tough area was the SW; I didn't know DND, so DEITY came slowly (also because this old codger didn't equate "hot:" with SEXY at first).
Doesn’t have the same layered simplicity of yesterday’s theme - the big guy summarizes the meh fill nicely. That SONGS floater fell flat - MUSIC OF THE NIGHT is the highlight but it’s too late at that point.
SWEET DREAMS
Liked the AT DAWN - ALL DAY pair. Love the HYSTERIA clip. ACORNS, SPARSE, DEWDROPS are all top notch. The gluey stuff that Rex reveals is just that - nothing difficult but it tends to glom up the flow. The MSNBC x DND cross is rough. Add NATL, GOO, THO, ISH etc and we get some ugliness.
Pleasant enough Tuesday morning solve.
URIAH Heep
Moonlight sonata is not a “song.” I get that this is not-picky, but still.
I’m one of those people who generally ignore the theme while solving. If the theme is clever, contemplating it afterward adds a nice little bump. Today was first a spot, then the bump. Splat: the MOONLIGHT SONATA is not a song. It doesn’t have words, it doesn’t have a singer, and it’s in three movements. Not a song.
Bump: on the plus side, it did take me a moment to understand why two themers had MOON and STARS but the others didn’t have celestial bodies. Then I saw DREAMS and NIGHT and grokked. Pretty nice, but a weird puzzle for the morning. Folks who solved this one last night at bedtime must have enjoyed that aspect of it.
Cute theme (I agree that CITY OF STARS was the weakest of the three) with the unnecessary inclusion of a very poorly clued SONGS
Of course, I never heard of that RIAN dude, and MILIEU would definitely trip me up in a spelling bee - so a little bit of trouble there.
I agree with Rex about the terrible habit that the NYT has of taking a perfectly normal answer like HAT an (oh so unnecessarily !) turning it into another annoying little PPP gnat or mosquito that must be ignored or mentally SWATted away. .
I blame that on Shortz. The constructor probably created this puzzle maybe a year ago and is not expected to have his/her finger on the pulse of the current “state of the state” in that regard. To activately encourage and sign off on this kind of slop on a daily basis is an editorial decision that has made the puzzles worse in my opinion.
Yeah, what Rex said. Decent theme idea, but less than exhilarating overall.
BITE ME will get @Gary's attention, but c'mon, it needed a more edgy clue.
My wife suggested ALGEBRA without any crosses in place, then (righteously) gloated when it was revealed as the answer.
I guess I've heard of someone referred to as their "GO TO" but it seems off without a (real) noun.
Always want a second L in MILIEU; more often that affects the SBee than the XW.
Initially wanted Hissy Fit for 9D. Not exactly Madness, but in hindsight it would have added a tad more sparkle. The NW and SE corners are downright ugly.
If HAT must be clued fictionally, maybe go with the iconic Dr. Seuss feline.
Moonlight Sonata is not a song. Just sayin.
A theme so simple and crossword-perfect, and yet in all the major crossword venues, it’s never been done before.
Perhaps other constructors have thought of making a “night time song” theme, but just couldn’t land a good revealer. “A Little Night Music”, at 17 letters, is too long. But Jeremy came up with the “Phantom of the Opera” song, and bravo on that!
It’s sweet that the grid contains the answer to “When does the music of the night end?”, with AT DAWN. I also liked the triple rhyme of PENS / YENS / DENS, the symmetrical GOO and LOO, and ESAU crossing I SAW.
Thank you for starting my day, Jeremy, with some beautiful music, and congratulations on your lovely debut!
Surprised Rex didn't mention "forfend" 46D. A rare sighting.
Yikes! I am so far behind the times in my knowledge of private jets. I kept trying to make G-two fit. I remember one time going through the private jet segment of an airport in Texas and picking up a magazine on one desk—found it full of pictures and ads for the sale of planes from all over the world, including small fleets of Russian MIG’s along with professional combat training. Gotta love private enterprise. I got into the SE because DND came to me via memories of my kids being players, but really struggled with GSIX. My brain got too wrapped up in airplanes to recognize SEXY—bad sign there!
Absolutely! It's right there in the title, which is not "Moonlight Song."
Or the href="https://cdn1.faroutmagazine.co.uk/uploads/1/2022/08/Johannes-Vermeer-Girl-with-the-Red-Hat-1.jpg">Vermeer painting
Just trying to be up to date: Is AMA (I assume "ask me anything" ) really a thing or just an attempt to avoid another inventive clue for American Medical Assn.?
I didn't read the whole clue for MUSIC OF THE NIGHT, so I didn't realize that it was the revealer. This made SONGS appear to be the actual revealer, even thought it was both wrong and had nothing nocturnal about it. When I came here and realized the true revealer, my estimation went up about a centimeter, but still, SONGS? I tried to convince myself that it was OK because Spotify calls every track a song, but in that case the Moonlight Sonata is three songs, not one.
Gotta admit I'm not familiar with my private jet names. Does the G stand for Grumman? You could also clue it as a square on the chessboard in ALGEBRAic notation.
This one really was too easy.
There is no model Gulfstream called a G-6.It is just wrong. There are G1,2,3,4,5 and then G550, 450,650. Also G100, 150, 200, 280, though those are actually rebranded Israeli jets. Super sloppy error.
Hey All !
No Eine kleine Nachtmusik? C'mon constructors, we're slipping.
😁
Decent TuesPuz. All "NIGHT" MUSIC. I SAW no AT FAULT with the puz ALL DAY. Didn't make me GO TO say BITE ME. (Obviously, not too much to say about the puz, just using various answer in a [unfunny] punny way.)
Uniclue:
Playing some MUSIC to get your partner in the mood at NIGHT?
SEXY SONGS GOTO
Hope y'all have a great Tuesday!
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
You see it on Reddit a lot.
Daria is a teen, not a little girl, which is a real distinction, and endemic of the puzzle which was both dull and kind of off on a lot of clues. Bleh.
Really surprised that our ultra-progressive Rex would be pro-Brexit, but ok. The EU is a force for good in the world, and a United Europe is a strong and important presence geopolitically and economically. And it stands up better to the corporate oligarchs our government seems to adore and Rex seems to abhor. Britain should have stayed in, but I don’t think the EU wants them back anyway: https://www.epc.eu/publication/brexit-10-years-on-why-would-the-eu-want-the-uk-back/
I am (admittedly late) Gen-X and never heard of Daria.
There is a song called "Like a GSIX" by a music group called Far East Movement. I didn't know why they were singing about the Pontiac G6 until I learned it was a plane.
Yes, it's very common on reddit.
Excellent. Great songs of different eras and genres. Not sure what RP meant by “in this economy”. Stock market at all time high, CPI 3.4% year-over-year in July 2026 after double digits a few years ago. Unemployment rate 4.1%. Economy is doing great, especially for those of us who own homes, all time high home values.
It really is, especially on Reddit (where it started, I think?). But it's now used more generally, e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/07/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-ask-me-anything.html.
Chess has been around long before crosswords and will continue to be around long after the electro light orchestra fades completely from collective memories.
So what? Still boring.
The correct comp isn’t chess-to-ELO but ELO-to-ELO. And on that basis the choice isn’t even close. Some initialism only chess players know vs. one of the great pop bands of the 20c? Come on.
Economy is great if you’re already rich.
Yeah it’s almost like Rex’s hyperbolic support for Brexit is a joke…
Not being much of a jet guy (give me a good propeller anytime) I truly thought, until I came here, that GSIX was a Gulfstream 9.
I like that the puzzle started off with a SONG (HELP).
We saw a death notice for t.he doctor that helped us birth each of our children the other day. Mrs. Egs said, "Here's an OBIT for my GOTO OBIT seems." It made me think back to all the times USMADE love when we were trying to have children.
Thanks for the nightcap, Jeremy Venook.
I came to say the same thing
I liked the cross of ESAU & I SAW and later LUBE & SEXY and NEWMEDIA & MSNOW
FWIW, Chess ELO isn't an initialism, it's a name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arpad_Elo
The clue said "title girl," not "little girl"
Oh sorry about that. I think my point may be stronger now 😆
Songs are "sung" (which the Moonlight Sonata is not). Rex is right: "SONG" should not be clued as is.
Same objection
If you're late Gen-X, then Daria would have been your age while the show was on in the '90s.
Look up the "K-Shaped Economy," Melissa.
G Six can never be a bingo call. B is 1-15, I is 16-30, etc. So G could only include the numbers 46-60.
Didn’t like it. Solved it. Reluctant 🎈🎈🎊🎊
In algebra, students solve for x & y
Agree. And not nitpicky. That in itself should’ve made this puzzle a no-go.
You think the chess scoring system is in our collective memory???
It's not sloppy. It's intentionally using slang to refer to the 650 model. "If you've ever heard the phrase "fly like a G6" and wondered what is a g6 plane, you're not alone. The short answer: a G6 plane is the popular nickname for the Gulfstream G650" https://jettly.com/post/what-is-a-g6-plane
My printer and my laptop got a divorce, I think, sol I had to do this one on line, where I'm always looking at the place where I want to type in my answer while I'm really somewhere else. I know better too, darn it.
Anyway, this was OK. Nice to see local-boy-makes-good NOAH Khan get a shout out. He's a real talent and his Busyhead Project is doing a lot of good in the mental health field.
ELO,RIAN, things I should have remembered. ___ARIA is obviously MARIA until it isn't. POST before PING and wanted FAQ for AMA but the Q was in the clue so no. Nice to see the classic clue for ATTA.
I had CITYOF____ARS and without looking too closely was hoping that LA was clued as the CITYOFCARS, which was my overwhelming impression of the place after a short visit. Way too many and far too important.
Not a bad Tuesdecito, JV. More Junior Varsity than A Team, but thanks for a medium amount of fun.
Enjoyed this Tuesday puzzle. It leaned a bit toward Wednesday. Goto seems a touch off.-- GSix?
Oh please. A shrinking labor force so fewer people are actively competing for jobs. High inflation so the everyday consumer is squeezed to the max. It’s not a pretty scenario except for the very rich.
Me too. Shows poor editing
Everyone knows that. The question was about clue phrasing, not what algebra is.
I thought it was more Easy than Medium. Didn't know NOAH, HAT (who is Mario anyway? Shows where I'm at I guess). I haven't watched MSNBC since it became MSNOW & Rachel Maddow went off the air.
I think Beethoven would roll over in his grave if he heard MOONLIGHT SONATA referred to as a SONG.
Congrats on your debut, Jeremy :)
I went as Daria for Halloween last year! The costume was generally recognized by the attendees, who are elder millenials (39-42 or so). I am 48 and I feel like Daria was exactly made for me.
You make it sound as though everything is just peachy … but have you been to the grocery store lately? The stock market and unemployment rate don’t mean much when you can’t afford to buy food for your family.
Easy.
CITY OF STARS and NOAH were WOEs and hEE before YEE and UNesco before UNICEF were it for costly erasures.
Cute theme, not much junk, liked it more than @Rex did.
Initialisms and Proper nouns are both bad so ELO and Elo should be avoided but ... c'mon ... of all the obscure athletes, authors, Nobelists, cities, rivers, and d-listers that fill our puzzles Elo has plenty of cred. BTW, the World Championship Match starts 10/30/26 in Goa, India between two youngsters. Can't wait!
I'll pile on. Starting piano lessons as a grade-schooler, I learned early on from my scarily strict teacher that I was not playing "songs," I was playing "pieces."
Thanks for Lyle!
I SAW ESAU - too good! Thanks for pointing it out.
Famous AMOS cookies - I used to eat them at lunch every day when I still worked. Then some company bought them and tried changing the recipe which turned out mealy and uninteresting. My co-worker, with whom I shared the cookies, found the Costco brand of chocolate chip cookies and we started eating them. They were made with real butter and tasted far superior to the original AMOS cookies.
But just a week ago, my husband came back from a vending machine with a bag of Famous Amos cookies which were close to how I remember the originals. They were edible anyway. The company that bought the Famous Amos brand must have come to its senses finally.
Jeremy Venook, thanks for a doable Tuesday puzzle!
Moonlight, stars, and dreams, followed by dewdrops at dawn - I thought it was a lovely theme with a perfect reveal. I only wish the constructor had resisted adding the superfluous and sonata-wise-wrong "songs." Otherwise...I found more to like than @Rex did - MILIEU, ACORNS, HYSTERIA, DEITY, AT FAULT. I thought it was a fine Tuesday outing.
If it can't be sung by a singer, it isn't a song...just saying, son. It's a sonata.
If you're going to refer to Moonlight Sonata as a song, why not clue it as "One of Beethoven's Greatest Hits?"
@Melissa, your protest is reminiscent of Kevin Bacon's character in Animal House ("All is well!").
You really need to broaden your sources of economic news beyond that sycophantic suck-up, Scott Bessent.
As the mother of an elder millenial daughter, I remember DARIA quite well.
41-year-old here. "Daria" is still one of the best television shows ever made.
Agree with Rex’s assessment but probably liked it a bit more (maybe I have a higher bar on “boring” fill).
My knowledge of high end private jets ended with the era of the Lear Jet, I know there are Gulfstreams and Cessnas (maybe Cessnas are only planes), but yeah, I rolled my eyes on that one for the reasons Rex said.
Lastly, I raise my hand (or join it with a few) that I was ignorant to the fact that a song needs to be sung. Does humming a sonata qualify it? Just kidding (I think) on the humming…
A short P.S. which kind of cracked me up…but made me feel a tad better was something I found under “can a song have no lyrics.”:
Practically, yes. In everyday conversation, people often call any piece of music without words an "instrumental song". However, purists and strict dictionary definitions argue that a song must have words or singing, while wordless music is technically a "piece," "track," or "composition".
As you can see, at best, I’m not a “purist.”
No such thing as G6. Grumman changed their designations
LEDON: How the French refer to Vito Corleone.
ATFAULT: a tagging error.
Just learned that in his autobiography Chuck Berry explained that his song "Roll Over Beethoven" was intending to advise the great composer on what to do with his IRA.
You read my mind, Kath320. Not to get all technical, but the so-called Moonlight Sonata (Sonata Quasi una Fantasia, as Beethoven called it) is the first moment of a three-movement abstract instrumental work called a sonata, owing to its formal structure. It is in no way a 'song. ' Songs have lyrics and are sung. Unfortunately, as our society becomes less culturally literate, all pieces of music are increasingly slapped with the dumbed-down label 'songs', whether a symphony or an original jazz improvisation. Will Shortz is certainly old enough to be aware of the distinction.
Easy? Not for me; there were so many Unknowns: ELO RIAN DARIA NOAH, and "Forfend"! And several typeovers: RIYAL before DINAR for "Kuwaiti currency", ONE DAY before ALL DAY for the theme park passes, TENET before DEITY for "Part of a pantheon", and the 4 letter "private jet" just had to be LEAR. (I'm not really up on private jets.)
Of course I made it worse by trying to solve down clues only for quite a while. Those above mentioned Unknowns and typeovers made that undoable.
I actually know all the tunes! (not all "songs".) Rex, the movie La-La-Land was pretty darn good, and I don't like musicals as a rule. When Emma and Ryan were singing CITY OF STARS, I thought: it's a musical, and I'm enjoying it! Who knew.
I agree that GSIX probably refers to the Gulfstream 6 series of private jets!
I’m not sure where to start here. But maybe I should just jump right into the SONGS/SONATA thing. Why not? I only have a “layman’s knowledge” concerning classical music. I have obviously been poorly trained in life’s important matters. But I, and possibly many, many others, would say that a song is just a piece of music. I’m inclined to offer this possibly incendiary opinion because while I was solving this last night I was listening to a 1975 album by Jeff Beck which contains not a single vocalized lyric. Nine instrumental tracks - also called songs. If I was, instead, listening to Bitches Brew, I’m pretty sure (though admittedly presumptious) that the late, great Miles Davis would not fault me for calling the tracks songs. It’s just what we, the great unwashed, the hoi polloi, say.
Classical music aficionados want us to think that the only great music was made 300 years ago and if we don’t agree, and don’t adhere to the terms of that time we are mere peons. I find it hard to agree with that. Song is an “umbrella” term and is perfectly okay here. Song = piece of music. It may have originally meant a piece that was sung, but times change.
As for he puzzle, I did it D-O and it was quite difficult. Putting in dementia at 9D held me up for the longest time.
Loved seeing BITE ME, as dated as it is, because I had a colleague in the newsroom with whom I would engage in snarky, but friendly repartee and she would always end the session with that term.
Okay, I’m ready, come at me.
Yes, I object to calling a piano sonata a “song”. That answer didn’t fit in the theme set.
Very nice Tuesday! Never heard of DARIA or NOAH but they emerged from the crosses. Still trying to rid myself of the SWEETDREAMS ear worm! GSIX is hilarious since who knows about private jets?
I am amused by the sonata-song discussion. One son’s jazz piano teacher referred to sonatas as songs and the other son’s classical piano teacher was very dismissive of that terminology. And I thought: languages evolve
Bro less really is more.
Song/ Moonlight Sonata issue
I remember we had not long ago a puzzle which equated song and a classical piece It got a lot of objections and today’s being a themer will probably get a lot more than the ones already posted. Obviously the editors disagree. To be honest, I didn’t look it up. I might be interested in their reasons for using it twice.
Or Sondheim's Finishing The Hat
And as an oldster I know Daria cause my kids watched it.
Southside Johnny
About the clue for HAT
Normally, these type of clues don’t bother me. There have been enough of Mario clues if late they are becoming easy crosswordese for me, even though I always disliked it for its faux Italian accents etc.
Oops
I was the one just commenting. I meant to say that to see rhe Super Mario Brothers
get almost to Star Wars level is annoying. to me. A rare occasion where I agree with Rex. Maybe a reference to Dr. Seuss if you have to use a brand name.
Anonymous 7.50 AM
My eyesight is getting worse so I try to double check before I criticize a clue
Amy
You are absolutely right
Brexit has been a disaster and a large majority of British now agree. Boris Johnson (who BTW was a mess as PM) opportunisticly supported it but the driving force were the British MAGA equivalents Trump vociferously supported Brexit. QED.
I’m a pianist and I’ve played the moonlight sonata since I was a teenager. To my thinking, song is an “umbrella” term and is perfectly okay here. Song = piece of music.
Agreed - La La Land was fine cinematography (vivid and colorful LA scenes and people) - OFL should watch it!
Anonymous 4:06 PM
Not when it’s an anonymous pout down
GSIX is from a 2010 EDM song called “Like a G6” (which looking it up now was a Billboard #1 hit for 3 weeks!). The song was everywhere for a brief period of time if you were an elder millennial.
But the band acknowledged at the time that they just made it up because songs always talked about G4 plans and they thought G6 would be even cooler.
Which makes this a bad answer/clue.
I was unsure how to react to the song/ Midnight Sonata issue. The editorial choice (this is the second time recently) made it obvious that the editors must have a reason for their choice. But it sounded wrong Yet based on the comments in opposition to the many critics, it apparently is okay. Expert music opinion is totally irrelevant. What matters is what people say we are talking about a puzzle here, not a dictionary or a classical music text book. Instrumental songs, referring to Bitches Brew has been noted. I especially noticed the different terminology between the classical music piano teacher and the jazz piano teacher.
Liked the puzzle more than Rex. Nothing new there. As I said earlier, I don’t like Super Mario Brothers. But good puzzle overall
Am I the only millenial who thought G6 was obvious / fun? Not a reference to the ultra rich but clearly to the Far East Movement song "feeling so fly like a G6"?!
Enjoyed this a bit more than @Rex. Clever theme idea and I thought the song choices were just fine, though like @Rex, had no idea about CITYOFSTARS but the crosses were all fair.
Someone may have mentioned this, but I liked how AMA and DEUS came one after the other at 22A and 25A.
Also liked DEWDROPS - a nice, happy entry.
Cool theme, Jeremy! Thanks for this!
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