Mev makes another relatively rare appearance today.
Tuesday is theme day in the Indy and we were led directly into the theme of today’s puzzle (after an electronic search) at 1ac. However almost all the (rather obscure) thematic references are in the clues, rather than in the entries. Unless we’re missing something, the only thematic entries are 6d 4d. We were not big fans of Prince, but it is a shame that Mev didn’t manage to get ’19’ into the grid to go with 14d, or find space for ‘Raspberry Beret’ or ‘Little Red Corvette’. However, we have learnt the names of some of the members of his band, and we enjoyed the puzzle despite the lack of other thematic grid entries.
DR (doctor) round or ‘entered by’ ESP (extrasensory perception – ‘psychic power’) A I (second letters of Matt Fink) – we had never heard of Dr Matt Fink, but we guessed it was not a random name chosen by Mev to fit the wordplay – a google search revealed that he is a keyboardist, producer and songwriter best known for playing keyboards in Prince’s band The Revolution – a hint of what is to come
LAG (delay) round or ‘describing’ P (quiet) WIN (victory)
A homophone (‘the sound of’) YOU PHONY (fake) + UM (hesitation)
Y A (last or ‘final’ letters of Wendy and Lisa) in or ’embraced by’ a reversal (‘returning’) of LORd (aristocrat) missing the last letter or ‘short’. Wendy Melvoin (guitar) and Lisa Coleman (keyboards) were members of The Revolution – Prince perhaps liked to think of himself as ‘royal’
MARY (‘old queen’) round or ‘welcoming’ T (Troy) + R (Romeo in the phonetic alphabet)
SAGE (smart guy) round or ‘holding’ an anagram (‘broken’) of LAV
A reversal (‘western’) of OUD (‘Arab’s lute’) + an anagram (‘dubiously’) of CLAIMED
C (cold) O O (‘ducks’ – zeroes) S (first or ‘primary’ letter of sympathising) – ‘When doves cry’ is a Prince track
Double definition
Alternate letters (‘oddly’) of ThE fLeEt + an anagram (”abandoned’) of CADETS
An anagram (‘wanders’) of YOUR ASS
HAL (computer – in ‘2001, a Space Odyssey’) LOW (blue)
An anagram (‘remixed’) of NEED + B (first letter or ‘intro’ to baby)
IE (id est – ‘that is’) round TIN (money) + RATE (speed)
PL (Poland) US (America) ONE (united)
An anagram (‘crazy’) of LET’S GO + T (first letter or ‘start’ of tour)
ME (setter) in or ‘enveloped by’ DREAD (fear)
An anagram (‘mingling’) of MELD and POSEURS
A CO (fellow, as in co-chair) + an anagram (āradical’) of STYLE
LA (Los Angeles – ‘city’) MPS (politicians) HADES (underworld figure) – we thought Hades was the underworld, but apparently it is also another name for the underworld god Pluto
Every third (‘regular’) letter in taPe sUpeRb lPs: bLue EveRy cArdgaNs – one of the few Prince tracks we know
LIVY (Roman historian) missing the ‘l’ (latin)
G (lift and separate Gateshead – first letter or ‘head’ of Gates) ALLEYS (lanes)
A MAD (loopy) O (circle) round ON TILL (where price is displayed)
Double definition – 1999 is a Prince track, but we can’t find the ’19’
PARA (soldier) K (last letter or ‘foot’ of lark) + a reversal (‘climbing’) of TEE (support)
A clue for ‘could’ might be CLOUD UP – with ‘up’ as an anagrind
D E (first and last letters or ‘clothes’ of Dianne) WIEST (Dianne Wiest – actress in the 1984 film ‘Footloose’)
B A M B (first or ‘initial’ letters of Bobby, Apollonia, Mark and Brown)+ O (hoola-hoop) O (over) – apparently Bobby Z was a drummer and Brown Mark was a bassist in the Revolution, and Apollonia Kotero is an actress who co-starred in Prince’s 1984 film 6d 4d
Hidden (‘protected by’) and reversed (‘retreating’) in darlinG NIKki – another member of royalty
N E U (last or ‘ultimate’ letters in can leave Spandau) – we had never heard of this German band apparently formed in 1971, disbanded in 1975 and reformed in the 80s. No connection with Prince though – as far as we can determine.
6d/4d PURPLE RAIN 1984 – (a 40th (Ruby) anniversary)…
I am more aware of the works of NEU than I am those of Prince, other than the one that appears in the solutions. So the grid could’ve been packed with his songs without my being aware of it. I thought there were some odd inclusions in the clues – it is always strange when random names like Wendy, Lisa and Apollonia appear. Given the recent discussion regarding the incorporation of more Gen Z friendly subject matter in puzzles ‘… pour encourager les jeunes …’, it’s good to see Mev interspersing some old school cluing with Livy, Hades, the Arab lute and an actress from a 1984 picture alongside his Dr Fink etc. The clues are all pretty solid – I’d liked to have seen some slightly more evocative surfaces, though.
Thanks Mev and B&J
…1984 was a very good year for Prince – US No.1 album for 6 months, hit film, Superbowl half-time, Grammys, Oscars, Brits
but only a No.2 single, kept off the top by Wham!’s Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.
I saw this theme quite early, but stopped sweating when I realised the theme was almost entirely in the clues rather than the solutions.. phew!
I felt Mev did a good job.. right balance between tricky n straightforward.. strange how I associate parakeets with pirates rather than fliers, but that’s obviously my problem… nice to include the only contemporary Roman historian I’m aware of, and who doesn’t like a 99!
I was wondering if Gateshead was going to lead to lead to something NE based but was happy not to have to use any insider knowledge..
Thanks Mev n Bertandjoyce
Thanks Mev and BnJ
To spell out the significance of the themed clues, they are the titles of 8 of the 9 tracks on the Purple Rain album, which was credited to Prince And The Revolution.
Other song titles 11a MARTYR – “I Would Die 4 U“, 23a HALLOW – “Computer Blue“, 25a DENEB – “Baby Iām A Star“, 28a PLUS-ONE – “Take Me With U“
29a GET LOST – “Letās Go Crazy“, 2d SUPERMODELS – “The Beautiful Ones“, 24d KING – “Darling Nikki“
PM – the names are not so random as all that: Wendy [Melvoin] and Lisa [Coleman] were members of Prince’s band, The Revolution, and Appollonia [Kotero] stars in the film Purple Rain. Matt Fink and Bobby Z were also members of The Revolution. (Wendy and Lisa also performed as a duo on their own – had a big hit with Waterfall – great song.)
Plenty of other references to the album, songs and band, some already mentioned – many Easter eggs for a Prince fan like me to enjoy. Coincidentally, while I was solving this, I heard someone on the radio being interviewed about the 40th anniversary of the album.
Thanks, Mev and B&J.
I see B&J did already mention the reason for the names in the blog – since they were all very apparent to me as soon as I read 1a, I didn’t need the assistance and admit I skimmed through the blog and jumped straight to the comments. Sorry! š
Prince’s favourite guitar is almost there in 19a TELECASTE[d->R] (also the 19 for 1999.
Widdersbel – I appreciated the relevance of the names on reading B&Js blog. As I said, I have little if any knowledge of Prince and his oeuvre so, when solving early this morning, the names appeared fairly random to me. I suspected there might be some rationale for them – there were other ways of cluing the single letters – but I was unlikely to intuit that they were members of a band. I can only speak to my own experience of the solve. They all rang bells for you but then you are a fan so they should.
[…) – missed the closing bracket.] Loved the puzzle.
Thanks M & B&J
Early to solve this, as in actually on the day, as I finished the Guardian with time for more crosswords.
I can sing some of the Prince tracks, but wasn’t enough of a fan to buy the albums or know the names of his band, but soluble without.
Thank you to bertandjoyce and Mev.
Ooolleh
Thanks Bert & Joyce and all solvers and commenters.
The germ of this puzzle came when I was listening to a song on the radio, and heard in the lyrics what m’learned colleague Methuselah calls a “crossword clue in the wild”:
“Let’s go dancing on the backs of the bruised…”
which suggested a parse of
LETSGO* (+ON/RE/etc) + [th]E [bruise]D
but alas I could make nothing of it. (Donāt expect a Pretty Hate Machine puzzle from me in 5 years.) Then “Let’s go crazy” popped to mind, which I thought I’d store away for another day. Some time later, I was considering computer=HAL in another puzzle, when “…and blue=LOW” occurred to me.
So, a whole Purple Rain puzzle, with all the tracks included? Oh, and the 40th anniversary was looming – and that happens to fall on a Tuesday? Better get to work then, so I started seeing how/if I could use the other song titles in clues, which ended up dictating the grid fill. This was back in October, and when the LP’s anniversary got mentioned here *twice* in other threads early this year, I started getting twitchy that someone else would beat me to it.
Sorry if the Theme Shoehorn lead to the occasional whimsical definition, or un-evocative surface.
Apollonia sang co-lead vocals on Take Me With U on the LP, so thatās why I felt she had to be in here, not because she was in the film. Yes, I tried to get Telecaste*R* in, but it proved too awkward. And true, I didnāt find room for *those* songs, but Simon & Frankie have pointed out the others from the album. š The nineteenless Ninety-Nine was merely along for the ride, as that was a different LPās title track. I originally had āYour ass is goneā, but that was from Positivity, so no need to push it.
Glad to have struck double figures. Hoping to be back soon,
āØCheers
Mev, reaching for a certain CD to stick on in the lunch interval, and looking on the floor for a lost semicolon
Hats off to Mev!
Not being familiar with the Purple Rain album, we hadnāt appreciated the very crafty inclusion of all the tracks (bar one?) on it. We now understand the exclusion of the Prince tracks that we had heard of, which were not on the album.
Hereās to the next one, Mev!
Prince would say that the word play for EUPHONIUM doesn’t work, because Nothing Compares to U.
BnJ @ 15 The missing track in the clues is Purple Rain itself, which, as you point out, appears in the grid.
BnJ@15 Thanks! (&SimonS@17) Maybe you didn’t realise that When Doves Cry (which you mentioned, but Simon & Frankie didn’t) is on the LP.
A-Side:āØ
Let’s Go Crazy
Take Me with U* (-> you)
The Beautiful Ones
Computer BlueāØ
Darling NikkiāØ
B-Side:
When Doves Cry
I Would Die 4 U (-> for you)
Baby I’m a Star
Purple Rain
Petert@16 š
Mev @ 18 I would maintain that saying the clues contain 8 of the 9 songs means that When Doves Cry was included.
Thanks both. Felt like a shoehorn for a size 14 to me e.g. the surface for PURPLE RAIN which starts relevantly then becomes a little odd and contrived, but artistic licence needs to be alive and well in crosswords. NINETY NINE was a very welcome refreshment, and at least hasnāt sparked the origin of the name debate, though I would contest that SUPERMODELS might have worn a question mark as to whether they are the beautiful ones – Iām not sure the fashion industry has ever been quite that fickle
Very clever crosswording, Purple Rain by Prince is wonderful I didn’t pick up on all the clues, Thanks to Mev and BertandJoyce
PeterT@16 š
Simon – Yes, sorry, muddled citing by me there.
TFO – That clue does read oddly without its missing “;” after (Joni Mitchell’s) Blue, yes. Sorry. Ah well.
Cheers all.