Constructor: Andrew Kingsley and Garrett Chalfin
Relative difficulty: Medium (i.e. normal Tuesday)
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THEME: READ MUSIC (33D: Follow a composer's notation ... or a hint to interpreting four clues in this puzzle)— clues contain musical notation, specifically what appear to be notes (i.e. single letters) followed by ♭or ♯ symbols, that must be read as the [letter + "flat" (or "sharp")] in order to be understood:
Theme answers:
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I can see why this idea would be tempting, but in practice, the results are rough. Uneven. Which I guess is what "rough" means, now that I think about it. The smallest issue I have is that B♯and E♯ aren't commonly known that way. That is, a B♯ is just a C and an E♯ an F. Yes, yes, it's "more complicated than that," but tonally, they're the same. In isolation like this, they seem strange. If you wanted a specific note, you'd ask someone to play an F, not an E♯. But this isn't a problem with the theme per se, just an odd (and, to my ear, slightly annoying) little feature. The problem is ... well, there are several. First, [A♭] wants me to read the "A" as ... what, an indefinite article? But you never use indefinite articles in crossword clues. [Flat] = APARTMENT all on its own. That "A" is completely redundant. Unless ... we are supposed to (somehow?) understand the "A" as the first letter of the word, and are supposed to interpret the clue as [Word meaning "flat" that starts with "A"], which seems implausible, to say the least. If the other clues had worked that way (not a bad idea, frankly), then OK. But that is not how the other clues work. Having LOOK ALIVE as the answer for [B♯] was odd because the most common phrase anyone can make out of any of those words is LOOK SHARP. I actually wrote in LOOK SHARP, but then remembered that "flat" wasn't in any of the earlier theme answers, so "sharp" probably wasn't in this one. LOOK ALIVE! is a fine phrase, but ["Be sharp!"] doesn't sound right as an equivalent. The worst thing about the theme, though, was [E♯] = TECH SAVVY. I don't get it. That is, I guess if you really lean upon the "?" nature of the clue, you can say "E-" is like the "E-" prefix in "EMAIL" or "EBOOK," that it just refers to All Things Electronic, and so a person might who is TECH SAVVY might be said (by some overambitious quipster) to be E-SHARP. But none of the other clues have that bent quality to them—once you change the musical notation to the word "sharp" or "flat," the other theme clues are quite literal and ordinary. Whereas "E-sharp" is (afaict) a totally made-up thing. As I say, rough.
Notes:![]()
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Medium (i.e. normal Tuesday)
Theme answers:
- APARTMENT (17A: A♭) (i.e. a flat)
- LIE DOWN (38A: B♭) (i.e. be flat)
- LOOK ALIVE (63A: B♯) (i.e. be sharp)
- TECH SAVVY (11D: E♯) (i.e. E- (electronic???) sharp)
Avril Ramona Lavigne (/ˈævrɪl ləˈviːn/ AV-ril lə-VEEN, French: [avʁil ʁamɔna laviɲ]; born September 27, 1984) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. She is considered a key musician in the development of pop-punk music, as she paved the way for female-driven, punk-influenced pop music in the early 2000s. Her accolades include eight Grammy Award nominations, among others.At age 16, Lavigne signed a two-album recording contract with Arista Records. Her debut studio album, Let Go (2002), is the best-selling album of the 21st century by a Canadian artist. It yielded the successful singles "Complicated" and "Sk8er Boi", which emphasized a skate punk persona and earned her the title "Pop-Punk Queen" from music publications. Her second studio album, Under My Skin (2004), became Lavigne's first album to reach the top of the Billboard 200 chart in the United States, going on to sell 10 million copies worldwide.
Lavigne's third studio album, The Best Damn Thing (2007), reached number one in seven countries worldwide and saw the international success of its lead single "Girlfriend", which became her first single to reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States. Her next two studio albums, Goodbye Lullaby(2011) and Avril Lavigne (2013), saw continued commercial success and were both certified gold in Canada, the United States, and other territories. After releasing her sixth studio album, Head Above Water (2019), she returned to her punk roots with her seventh studio album, Love Sux (2022). (wikipedia)
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The fill is less than sterling today as well. Lots of repeaters. AÇAI AGHA ATEAT IWIN etc., the (very) worst of which is ABRA (49A: Start of a spell), a ... partial incantation (?) that absolutely positively does not want to stand on its own and always give me a nails/chalkboard feeling when I see it (which, thankfully, is rarely) (oof, not rarely enough—56 times in the Shortz Era???). Looks like ABRA is sometimes an ["East of Eden" girl] or a Pokémon. Can't say that helps. Maybe the grid really needed ABRA in order to pull off BANKSY, which is easily the most interesting thing in the grid today (50D: Anonymous creator of a painting sold at auction that subsequently shredded itself). That whole SE corner is nice actually, from BANKSY into the old-fashioned but somehow endearing "AND HOW!" into the equally exclamatory "OY, VEY!," which slots in alongside the cleverly clued HAIKU (53D: A kind of poem / Found within this crossword clue / Serendipity) (the only problem with this clue is ... that not exactly what "Serendipity" means—there's an element of chance to "Serendipity," whereas this clue is a HAIKU by design).
Notes:
- 22A: "Hello," in Mandarin (NIHAO) — I was driving past a bubble tea cafe this weekend called NIHAO and actually thought to myself (possibly even said out loud to myself), "it's weird that you don't see NIHAO in the puzzle more often ..." and then Bam, here it is. That's serendipity (I think).
- 51A: Liquid-ate? (MELT) — hmmm. I see what this clue is trying to do (emphasize the "liquid" part by breaking off the "-ate"), but the clue, as written, looks like you want an answer meaning [Ate liquid] ... so, DRANK? Something like that ...
- 28A: Not playing any songs, as a radio station (ALL TALK) – what a dull way to clue this otherwise colorful colloquial phrase. ALL TALK is the counterpart of "no action," if it's anything. [Like someone who brags about what they're gonna do but never does it]. But this clue ... I wanted DEAD AIR.
- 1A: Discontinue (DROP) — welcome to 1-Across, the hardest part of the puzzle for me. Why? Because I went with STOP ... And then crossed it with STAGE (1D: Field of play?). Man, did that feel right on both counts. STOP / STAGE before DROP / DRAMA absolutely gummed up the works (for fifteen seconds or so, probably, but on Tuesday, that's an eternity).
That's it. See you tomorrow.
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