The 2024 mega-meta challenged solvers to find a hit from the early 2000s. This puzzle, the mega-meta reveal, uses the same mechanism, but puts it all in one puzzle.

A total of 24 clues contain repeated M’s (a nod to the term “mega-meta”), with the repetition occurring in two different ways. First, 12 different Across clues each contain exactly two words starting with the letter M.

As shown below, the first letters of these 12 “M M” entries spell out, in order, “DOUBLE M CLUES.” Wait a second? Is this self-referential? No! It’s a hint at the other, more subtle, “M” repetitions, where twelve Down clues contain words with consecutive M’s.

As is also shown below, the first letters of these 12 entries spell out this year’s mega-meta, Lose Yourself, Eminem’s smash hit from 2002. Note that EMINEM also appears in the grid, clued as [Rapper whose name sounds like a candy], as a subtle hint to the meta mechanism.

This same mechanism was embedded in the 12 “regular-season” MMMM puzzles, with each month containing one clue of each type, as shown below. Congratulations to the 26 people who caught on early and solved the mega-meta before this puzzle came out, earning bonus points and increasing their chances to make it to the Grand Prize drawing. First was LL in April, followed by Danny K Bernstein, Codiak, and Brent Holman in May. Impressive!

This puzzle also revealed this year’s red herring, a song from the ’60s that should be mentioned in the clues to the July puzzle, but isn’t. In the first puzzle of the year, FOUR was clued as [Number of times “Tuesday” occurs in the lyrics of the Moody Blues’ “Tuesday Afternoon”]. Each of the next five puzzles had a clue with the subsequent day of the week repeated twice, ultimately accounting for all days of the week except Monday, as shown in the table below:

Therefore, a double “Monday” should have been next in July, but wasn’t, pointing to to the 1966 Mamas & the Papas hit Monday, Monday.

Mega-Meta Song:

We reimagined this classic rap tune as a ’50s doo-wop tune. Andy Mac did a great job! With apologies to Eminem …

Selected Solver Comments:   (thank you!)

Leslie   Love the MMMM’s MM theme this year! You worked it in so many ways, including the red herring and Eminem.

damefox   Finally found the second step! But now I’m worried you’re using this as a message to solvers and you’re trying to say you’re stepping aside from the MMMM and not continuing it next year???   Rest assured the MMMM will be continuing in 2025!

WannabeCoder   Brilliant as always! Thanks for another year of great metas.

Rocklouder2424   Oh I cannot WAIT for this cover! Thank you guys for another incredible year. You never cease to amaze us.   I hope you liked our approach!

Googly   what a mega-meta, what a performance/
month after month the MMMM will always awe us/
the skill to set this up must be freaking enormous/
how in the heck did LL get this in four months?!   Agreed – very impressive!

Superkipper   First year doing the MMMM and will be back for more next year!   Great!

jus10   can’t believe people found the MM clues before this puzzle. Needle in a haystack!

michaelm   MMGood. Thank you all for an outstanding 2024!

Alternative Music Clues:

Chris Popp suggests cluing SOLACE as [Sarah McLachlan album featuring “The Path of Thorns (Terms)”].

Evan suggests cluing OMAR as [One-named “There’s Nothing Like This” singer who’s sometimes billed as ___ Hammer], HUME as [Evermore lead singer Jon], and PESO as [Currency that served as the title of A$AP Rocky’s debut single].

Groaners:

docison   I love the layers of M’s in this solve. Did Mack come up with this approach?   For Mack Meller? Groan.

HPetriJr   I wouldn’t have won this year’s contest even with an 8 Mile headstart!

m5rammy   my my!

Mikey G   I only had one shot to do this puzzle!

Totals this month:

150 correct (26 before this puzzle), 66 incorrect

Rating: 4.67 out of 5 stars (4.93 from early solvers)

Difficulty: 3.74 out of 5 (3.72 from early solvers)

Red Herring solvers: 125

Monthly mug winner: Ben Chenoweth from Melbourne, Victoria

Thanks as well to Ben Chenoweth for filling in for Matt Gaffney and 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.

2024 MMMM Puzzles
(Click images to enlarge)

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