Welcome Washington Post Puzzlers!
If you’re just joining us from the Washington Post, welcome! The MMMM (Muller Monthly Music Meta) has been challenging solvers for over 12 years.
If this is your first time solving a meta crossword, please check out out primer on how metas work here before diving in!
Click to expand for a contest overview.
How the MMMM contest works:
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- A new puzzle is posted on the first Tuesday of each month. Solvers have until Sunday 11pm (Eastern Time) to send in a correct solution to the meta.
- The meta answer for each puzzle is a song, band, album, or something else music-related.
- While the contest is open, there is a box on the right hand of this page where you can submit your answer to the meta, as well as rate the puzzle in terms of enjoyment and difficulty, and/or send in a comment. The optional ratings and comments are helpful to me – I love feedback! Note: Be careful not to confuse the Meta submission box with the “Mega-Meta (click to submit)” box—more on that below.
- You will get an email confirmation after you submit your answer. Only your first answer counts, so please be careful before submitting. If you’ve made an obvious typo, resubmitting is fine. Submitting an answer will put you on our notification list for when the puzzle solution is published, and for when subsequent puzzles are published (you can unsubscribe at any time).
- Each month, one randomly chosen solver who has submitted a correct solution to the meta will receive a coveted MMMM mug.
- For full contest details/prizes, please click here.
Mega-meta:
The 2025 contest once again features a mega-meta, hidden in the 12 monthly puzzles. A mega-meta is like a meta in that it challenges a solver to find a hidden theme in the clues, answers, titles, or metas from a group of puzzles. It’s like a meta, except you’re not just searching for a pattern in one puzzle, you’re searching for it across puzzles.
It’s up to you to figure out what’s going on. You can enter your solution to the mega-meta in the box at the right at any time during the year, and the scoring is the same as last year: The earlier you solve the mega-meta, the more bonus points you get. Full details can be found in the Contest Rules. Because the reward is so large for getting the mega-meta before the final puzzle, there may be some tricks designed to throw solvers off the track. Consider yourself warned. Click here (SPOILER ALERT) for the write-up on last year’s mega-meta (and here for the 2023 mega-meta).
If you’re joining the contest now, you can see unlocked versions of past puzzles here. These will be helpful if you’re trying to guess the mega-meta early.
Thanks for playing, and enjoy!