The September MMMM challenged solvers to find a pop superstar. The five theme entries share many letters in common, including most notably a large amount of R’s and G’s:

LENA HORNE
RISING SENIOR
GLARING ERRORS
GINGER ROGERS
NEGLIGEES

It turns out that these theme entries contain only 10 unique letters. What’s next?

The puzzle’s title, “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” suggests counting the number of occurrences of each letter, and that turns out to be the trick. There’s one H, two A’s, three L’s, etc., as shown in the table below:

These letters, read in sequence, form the phrase “HALO SINGER,” which points to this month’s meta answer, Beyoncé, whose smash hit “Halo” has gone 11x platinum and received nearly two billion views on YouTube.

A few solvers who didn’t pick up on the frequency ordering and just tried to anagram the 10 letters came up with “HOLA SINGER” and submitted Flo Rida, who does indeed have a 2017 song “Hola.” Funny coincidence!

Meta Song:

I was in Norway with the band recording my new album and decided to take a crack at covering this song. Can Pete do Beyoncé? Check out the video below!

Selected Solver Comments:

strybner   Very satisfying! Beautifully constructed.   Thanks!

JWH   Can’t wait to see you sing Halo.   You got your wish!

Qatsi   Love the mechanism on this one!   Thanks!

pbfrommn   It was my understanding that there would be no math. But hats off for the brilliant inclusion of TOP TEN in the grid.

Alternative Music Clues:

Evan suggests cluing WACO as [Birthplace of the country music legend Hank Thompson], APE as [“I hate every ___ I see / From chimpan-A to chimpan-Z, / No, you’ll never make a monkey out of me” (lyric sung by Troy McClure in a science fiction film-inspired musical on “The Simpsons”)], and ANTILLES as [French ___ (setting of the musical “Once on This Island”)].

Groaners:

GABNC   This puzzle was everything I needed and more

Zoltar   The frequency is Bey once.

Mikey G   All the single letters
All the single letters
All the single letters
All the single letters

Totals this month:

164 correct, 42 incorrect

Rating: 4.46 out of 5 stars

Difficulty: 3.66 out of 5

Monthly mug winner: Amy Hamilton fromIndianapolis, IN

Thanks to Evan Birnholz and Mike Graczyk 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!