They've Got That X Factor

October’s been a great month for new music. Tame Impala, LANY, The Midnight, and Taylor Swift all released new albums, Maisie Peters dropped some new singles, and I got to see Carter Vail, aka “The Dirt Man Guy,” live in a bar show. I’m not going to say these albums were all bangers, but it’s been so fun getting fresh new music from a bunch of your favourite musicians at once.

There are a lot of songs I’d like to highlight as favourites - but given that we’re in spooky season, let’s go with this one from Tame Impala’s latest album Deadbeat.

I can’t remember how this week’s crossword came about - sometimes I jot an idea down in my notes app, then months later, see it and feel inspired to turn it into a puzzle. You’ll need a little more pop culture (and, um… regular culture?) for this one, but don’t let that scare you off - it’s worth it :)

Discussion (and spoilers!) below the break.

Play

They’ve Got That X Factor by Brandon Cathcart

Discussion

This puzzle ended up having a lot of French in it. I realized that at some point during construction, but couldn’t rework it into something I liked with less - so here we are. I hope you took French in high school lol.

MTV’s Pimp My Ride was truly one of the silliest shows to be on air. I’ll let this clip do the talking.

Today’s Theme

This week, the revealer is 29-Down, [Mutant superheroes... and a way of describing the answers to the starred clues]. Those mutant superheros are X-MEN, which is a fun way to describe some MEN with an X in their name! The starred answers, 14-Across, 27-Across, 9-Down, and 19-Down, are MALCOLM X, Joaquin PHOENIX (mind the O and E), XZIBIT (see above lol), and an actual member of the X-men, Professor Charles XAVIER.

Behind the Clues

17A. [Altar one’s words?] is a clue I’ve been sitting on for a while, waiting for the right moment to use it. A play on the phrase “alter one’s words,” it should be read as “the words of one at the alter”, getting married - I DO.

19A. For someone so deep in the crossword game, I don’t play much (or any) Scrabble. I will always play a round of Bananagrams though. Bananagrams doesn’t assign points to tiles, so this knowledge isn’t very useful - but [It's worth 8 points in Scrabble] is an X TILE. It’s not the highest point tiles, though - Q and Z are worth 10 points each.

32A. [It spreads light wherever it goes] is what I want someone to say about me one day, except I want them to not use “it” lol. Not quite misdirecting enough for a question mark, a PRISM does one thing very well - spreading light into a beautiful spectrum.

6D. One achievement that will stick with me forever is when in grade 12, we campaigned to get our very not-buff friend voted as “gun show” or “strongest guy” or whatever the category was for the graduation awards. Posters, slogans, the works. And much to the disgruntlement of the people who actually deserved it, he won. I do still feel a bit bad because those other guys were actually gunning for it, but hey, it was really funny. So. Anyway, be generous to your friends and [Give free tickets to the gun show, say], by giving them a FLEX of whatever muscles you’ve got!

15D. “There’s no ‘J’ in Hollywood” you say out loud, looking slightly upward and tapping a pen on your chin (bold of you to do the crossword in pen). “There must be something going on here.” There is, dear solver. [It comes after "J" in Hollywood] refers to Hollywood’s Jennifer Lopez, aka J. LO. “Ah!” you exclaim, softly though, since you’re among others, having your usual coffee (decaf vanilla latte, half sweet) at your favourite coffee shop. You gently ink “LO” into the waiting squares. And, scene.

18D. Alanis Morissette may have tricked us into thinking that real irony doesn’t exist - situational irony, at least - with her hit song Ironic and all its not-ironic things. Was she doing it to troll wordsmiths everywhere? Hopefully. Great ironies do exist, and here are two of my favourite: ["The Bible is the most shoplifted book of all time in the U.S." and "The founder of Match.com's girlfriend left him for someone she found on Match.com", for two]. They’re IRONIES.

I hope you enjoyed this puzzle!

Until next Friday,

Brandon