The first MMMM of 2026 challenged solvers to find a well-known rock band. Solving the grid was on the trickier side, but the meta was pretty straightforward.

Five different squares in the grid are asymmetric rebuses with a number in the Across direction (5, 4, 3, 2, and 1) and the word “CROW” in the Down direction.

Each number is part of a full song title clued with the format [{Year} {Artist name} hit], as follows:

Note that these entries are the only ones clued in such fashion.

What next? Sheryl Crow? Doesn’t quite fit. A Murder of Crows? Apparently there’s a band by that name, but that’s pretty obscure for an MMMM answer. The obvious solution is Counting Crows, this month’s meta answer.

Meta Song:

“Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby” is one of my favorite Counting Crows songs. It was inspired by a crush lead singer Adam Duritz had on actress Monica Potter. A little creepy, I guess, but a great song. I cut out two verses and it’s still one of the longest MMMM videos we’ve done. Enjoy!

Selected Solver Comments:

technohumanistteacher   A much more clever puzzle than we usually see in January. I had to look up most of the songs that were the key across entries and still didn’t see that I needed to swap out numbers for “crow” for quite awhile.

EFlatMinor   What the heck is a MIFIVEAVE? Oh.

Raygirl   Took me a good minute or two to get any traction in the grid! Have coincidentally been playing a lot of their music lately— even before your December puzzle— so extra fun for me. Thanks!

Burak O’Drama   Great meta to be used as an intro to this part of the Crossworld!

mrprough   I believe this is the first one I have ever gotten correct. Fun puzzle!

Ptjefe   The grid was tough, but the meta was January-appropriate.

Sendhil Revuluri   Thank goodness we’re back to January!

Alternative Music Clues:

msf suggests cluing ALARM as [“Ring the ___” (2006 Beyoncé hit)], IRON as [First word of a Black Sabbath song title, or of a band name ending in Maiden], and ATOMIC as [“___ Dog” (1982 George Clinton song)].

EasyNow suggests cluing HERB as [“Shake Your Groove Thing” group Peaches & ___], MONICA as [One half of the duetting singers responsible for the 1998 hit “The Boy Is Mine”], and MICROWAVE as [“We got to install ___ ovens, custom kitchen delivery” (lyric from a 1985 Dire Straits hit)].

Hollie suggests cluing ALARM as [Strawberry ___ Clock (psychedelic band with the hit “Incense and Peppermints”)].

pbfrommn suggests cluing ETON as [Sir Denis ___-Hogg, head of Polymer Records in “This Is Spinal Tap”].

Groaners:

mmurphy   It’s so great to come back to a new year of the MMMM after A Long December.

Jennybean   This answer is Hanginaround a while longer I guess?

Robin   No “caws” for me not to get this.

Jwaan   Wow, now it’s a REALLY Long December.

michaelm   Hmm, I’d like to report a murder.

mrlampo   My 6ning achievement for 2026 thus far.

Dr M   Great start to the CAWntest. Hope everyone is RAVEN about it.

Totals this month:

544 correct, 25 incorrect

Rating: 4.20 out of 5 stars

Difficulty: 2.03 out of 5

Monthly mug winner: Laurabrarian

Thanks 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.

Thanks for playing and see you next month!