This month’s MMMM challenged solvers to find a well-known singer. Each of the five theme entries contains a substring that’s a homophone of a musical act’s name:

SEE A DOCTOR –> SIA

HIGH MAINTENANCE –> HAIM

ELENA DELLE DONNE –> ADELE

PREDATORY ANIMAL –> RIHANNA

I’M TELLIN YA –> ENYA

The first letters of the names of the musical acts spell out the word S-H-A-R-E, which is in turn a homophone for Cher, this month’s meta answer.

Some of the homophones were easier to spot than others, notably ADELE and SIA.

Meta Song:

Santa Barbara locals Lindsey Marie and Duncan Wood joined the Kindred Souls for this version of a Cher classic. Enjoy!

Selected Solver Comments:

Tade   A great construction. Very clever and a nice level of difficulty. Thanks for a fun puzzle.

michaelm   Aw man, love homophones!

JustinW   Slight ding for Haim being a band and not a mononymous singer, but also I don’t know what other choice you had.   Very fair. See the next comment.

ab   I would say that to be more parallel, maybe H.E.R. (HIRSUTE something, or maybe HEARD?) instead of Haim to keep them all (single) singers.   Agree – that would have been better!

Baschoon   This one was easy but I loved it! Creative and fun as always 🙂

BenChen71   Pronunciation metas are always tricky for us foreigners!   Sorry!

Alternative Music Clues:

Stribbs suggests cluing SPREE as [Word that Blu Cantrell makes bisyllabic in “Hit ‘Em Up Style (Oops!)”].

Bird Lives suggests cluing ACE IN as [“___ the Hole” (Cole Porter song)].

Evan suggests cluing ERIN as [Country singer Kinsey], CNN as [Channel that aired the documentary series “Soundtracks: Songs That Defined History”], ATL as [GA city where OutKast formed], and ACROSS as  [“If You Don’t Come ___ (I’m Gonna Be Down)” (song by Vic Fleming that he performed at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, as seen in “Wordplay”)].

Groaners:

ab   It’s like when she enters a contest with a bunch of impersonators- Cher and Cher-alike.

Mikey G   Do you believe in life after puzz? // I can feel something inside me say // “I really don’t think you solve enough”

Schmeel   Eye Kant here homme o’ Fonz sew ell. Aye Kneaded a cyst tense. Ewe in sum, U loo sum!

Spelvin   If I could tern Bach thyme…

gpagano   I do think this one was a joule.

Jennybean Hard one! And I feel like my answer is not Usher thing (Beck cause one part in particular seems iffy…)

Totals this month:

174 correct, 61 incorrect

Rating:  4.05 out of 5 stars

Difficulty: 3.86 out of 5

Monthly mug winner: Bill Wilkins from Washington, DC

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!