Wed 12/28/2022
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Great piece of trivia, that TINA TURNER, STEVIE NICKS, and CAROLE KING are the only three women to be inducted into the ROCK AND ROLL / HALL OF FAME both as part of groups and as soloists.
What fortune that the five theme answers adhere to crossword symmetry! Yes, ROCK AND ROLL / HALL OF FAME does need to be split, but it divides at a natural break. It would have been much less elegant if Cruciverba, the goddess of crosswords, had forced something like ROCK AND / ROLL HALL / OF FAME.
The grid is as open as a 72-word themeless (75 words, but 16x15 instead of usual 15x15), which is an incredibly difficult construction given five themers. There's a lot to love: BASS NOTES is a fun echo to the theme, ITALIANATE gets an interesting clue about English architecture, and JANE ADDAMS gets her due as the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Fun use of 7-letter slots in AD ASTRA, BERNESE mountain dogs, and LEONINE, too.
Themes focusing on names can tend to be hard for some solvers, and all the other proper nouns — JANE ADDAMS, BENNETT, OBISPO, MOORES LAW, NANAIMO, ABRAHAM, KOMEN, etc. — felt overwhelming. I like it when constructors push the envelope, but in this case, I would have preferred fill that better matched the level of theme difficulty — perhaps a 77 or even 79-word grid, featuring only four incredible bonuses.
It would have been great to have ROCK AND ROLL shifted to the left, and HALL OF FAME to the right, to have the entire phrase read together more strongly. Overall though, I enjoyed the debut offering that honored this trio of groundbreaking women.
