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. 

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