2026 Puzzle 2: “Pete’s Excellent Metas Deliver Ample Surprises” Solution
The second MMMM of 2026 challenged solvers to find a famous pop album. Six theme entries were clued as a song lyric, with a twist: all of them, except the last one, were accompanied by parentheses and math operations.
Where to go from here? Each lyric is from a song by an artist with a number in their name. Replace the lyrics with these numbers, and do the math! Don’t forget the order of operations, commonly remembered with the acronym PEMDAS (Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction), which are also the first letters of the words in this puzzle’s unusually lengthy title.
| ((“A little old place where we can get together” + | LOVE SHACK | The B-52‘s |
| “A hundred days have made me older”) / | HERE WITHOUT YOU | 3 Doors Down |
| “I’m more than a bird. I’m more than a plane”) x | SUPERMAN | Five for Fighting |
| (“Hello there, the angel from my nightmare” – | I MISS YOU | Blink-182 |
| “In the city, the city of Compton, we keep it rockin'”) + | CALIFORNIA LOVE | 2Pac |
| “Bow down before the one you serve … you’re going to get what you deserve” | HEAD LIKE A HOLE | Nine Inch Nails |
Filling in the lyrics with the artist numbers yields ((52+3)/5)x(182-2)+9. We start with the expressions in the parentheses to obtain (55/5)x180+9, or 11×180+9. Now we multiply before we add (recalling PEMDAS once again), yielding 1,980+9 or, finally, 1989, Taylor Swift’s best-selling album and this month’s meta answer.
Steve Blais points out that, while what we did is correct, one set of parentheses in the clues for LOVE SHACK and SUPERMAN is technically extraneous: the math is the same if we use (52+3)/5x(182-2)+9. The M and D of PEMDAS are actually tied in priority and the tiebreaker is whichever appears first, so we’d still divide 55 by 5 before multiplying by 180, keeping the same answer.
Meta Song:
I received many suggestions as to which song to cover this month. I picked the lesser-known song “Clean,” the last track from 1989. The band was in Florida playing a few shows and we learned and recorded this version in an hour. Enjoy!
Selected Solver Comments:
TomB Nice work, Archimedes! As a classic rocker, I wish you had calculated differently to create 1984 (Van Halen) or 2112 (Rush).
bnj Being a retired maths teacher helped with PEMDAS.
EliSelzer Curse you for making me remember how to math!
mpf004 Making us work this early in the year! I’m in my ‘struggling with the meta’ era.
George For our Canadian friends: Brilliantly Executed, Devious Meta, Always Superb
Lissie This was so fun, in the nerdiest way. A true delight – thank you!!
Alternative Music Clues:
Steve Blais suggests cluing RAN as [A Flock of Seagulls hit “I ___ (So Far Away)”].
Quiara suggests cluing COVEN in reference to the 1960s-’70s rock band.
EasyNow suggests cluing NASSAU as [“My grandfather and me / Around ___ town we do roam” (lyric from a Beach Boys song about a bad boat trip)].
Lee F suggests cluing ASAP in reference to the rapper ASAP Rocky.
Pete Mitchell suggests cluing LUST as [“___ for Life (Iggy Pop album)] and ALL DAY as [When Todd Rundgren wants to bang on the drum].
pbfrommn suggests cluing SENSE as [Something working overtime in a 1982 XTC single].
Redhead64 suggests cluing COPS as [Fox show that uses Inner Circle’s “Bad Boys” as its theme song].
Evan suggests cluing SENSE as [“I know it’s so conventional / But it don’t make no ___ at all” (King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard lyric from a song whose title fills in the blank)], SONIA as [Mononymous singer with the 1989 hit “You’ll Never Stop Me Loving You”], and CABANA as [Shelter that follows “Copa” in a Barry Manilow hit].
Groaners:
zerocrates I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling “I wanna take you for granted” + “Sleight of hand and twist of fate”.
M+S Just the right Style for two (not so) New Romantics who met in math class — this one added up nicely!
mlangschwager MMMM is #((5^2+9*1-4)-(66/3+7))!
Darcyunderscore Taylor-made to be solved Swiftly.
mattyx That one did quite a number on me!
Dr.Buttbeard When I looked at the Clean grid, my mind was a Blank Space, but I decided to Shake it Off and begin.
As I worked through the grid, the Bad Blood towards you started to boil but I told myself “All You Have to Do Was Stay focused.”
I finally finished the grid but I knew I wasn’t Out of the Woods yet. I wanted to give up, but I know that perseverance is how you solve metas (and How You Get the Girl).
Not in my Wildest Dreams did I think I could, but I figured out the meta!
Now I can say that I like your Style!
I Wish You Would visit me so I could say “Welcome to New York!”, and I could show you around because I Know Places that you would really enjoy. It’s the least I can do for allowing me to continue with This Love of meta crosswords.
Totals this month:
407 correct, 36 incorrect
Rating: 4.38 out of 5 stars
Difficulty: 2.47 out of 5
Monthly mug winner: Beth Albers from Beaver, PA
Thanks to Matt Gaffney for blogging the puzzle at Crossword Fiend, where you can rate the puzzle (thanks!) and/or leave a comment.
Thanks to Tamara Brenner for the graphic.
Thanks for playing and see you next month!