puzzle untimed; meta about 10 minutes (Matt)
Season 3, Episode 10 of the MMMM. Before I had even looked at this puzzle, Rex Parker tweeted:
Got the Muller Monthly Music Meta by dumb luck. Random thought ended up being right for reasons I discovered after. http://t.co/UDQTY64eDe
— Rex Parker (@rexparker) October 7, 2014
That sounded intriguing, so I decided to prioritize solving it right away. Pete tells us we’re looking for a classic rock-and-roll album. The three linked theme entries appeared to be:
17-A [It runs through 4-Down] = PEACHTREE (Street), 4-Down being ATLANTA.
39-A [It runs through 45-Across] = CANAL (Street), 45-Across being NOLA, a.k.a. New Orleans, Louisiana.
66-A [It runs through 46-Down] = BROADWAY, 46-Down being NEW YORK.
So what now? We have three main thoroughfares running through three major cities. I wondered: is Broadway technically a street? The other two are, so I thought this might be useful meta information. Wikipedia says:
Although current street signs are simply labeled as “Broadway”, in a 1776 map of New York City, Broadway is explicitly labeled “Broadway Street”.
OK, so it sounds like we could call it a street, so I began brainstorming classic rock albums with “Street” in the title. This came to mind, but led nowhere. Couldn’t think of anything else, so I fired up my search engine and typed in classic rock album street. First entry: Amazon page of the Rolling Stones’ 1972 double album Exile on Main St.
Hmm, that sounds like it could be right. Let’s look around the grid: Hey, there’s NAPOLEON, famously exiled on Elba and St. Helena; and there’s the DALAI LAMA, exiled from Tibet/China. And they’re both stacked right on top (see puzzle title, “Stack ’em Up”) of those roads, literal “exiles on Main Street.” I didn’t know OVID was exiled, but there he is on top of CANAL Street, and Wikipedia confirms:
He was the first major Roman poet to begin his career during the reign of Augustus,[3] and the Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists.[4] He enjoyed enormous popularity, but in one of the mysteries of literary history he was sent by Augustus into exile in a remote province on the Black Sea, where he remained until his death. Ovid himself attributes his exile to carmen et error, “a poem and a mistake”, but his discretion in discussing the causes has resulted in much speculation among scholars.
Interesting. So EXILE ON MAIN ST. is indeed our meta answer. Want to see something cool? Notice how in the above solution grid the highlighted answers aren’t symmetrical in the grid: CANAL over NOLA is asymmetrical, as are the 8-letter BROADWAY and 9-letter PEACHTREE. Random and ragged, right?
But look what happens when you return the exiles:
Isn’t that pretty? The symmetry only appears after you’ve gotten the meta. Beautiful touch.
Highlights:
***25-A [Product containing 70% saturated fat and processed sugar and once marketed as part of a healthy breakfast] = NUTELLA. Have you seen this map of the wealthiest people in each European country? Italy’s richest person is the guy who created NUTELLA, which is awesome. 
***23-A [“___ You Now” (smash hit from Lady Antebellum)]. So meta, as LADY ANTEBELLUM was the answer to last month’s MMMM.
***15-A [Fourth-highest mountain on Earth] = LHOTSE. Whoa, that’s some new information. Are there HOTELS on LHOTSE?
Good visual meta, and I really dug that symmetry reveal. 4.30 stars.
Thanks Matt!
71 correct this month
and 23 people have solved the 2014 mega-meta…
next month will likely see an uptick in difficulty…
I’d been hung up on this all week, having thought of and then doing extensive research into the E Street Band, who take their name from a street in Belmar, NJ, one of whose major streets is River St, and The River is an E Street Band album.
But that seemed too convoluted and in desperation I googled “main street album” and there it was. Looked back at the puzzle, half-expecting to see XIL above the street names, but saw Napoleon instead and it all clicked. Very enjoyable aha moment!
I was thinking it might be Takin’ It to the Streets by the Doobies, especially since it includes the song It Keeps You Runnin’. But nothing really clicked, and, while it’s a great album, I wouldn’t necessarily call it a classic. I played with Exile on Main St. and Abbey Road, too, but again, nothing was jumping out…
Great grid, Pete!
Takin’ It To The Streets was my first thought too. But I could tell it wasn’t precise enough — I’m glad I kept looking.
Possible answers not previouslly mentioned: The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, BS’s second studio album; On Every Street, Dire Straits’ last studio album. Went with Exile after flipping a coin.
My incorrect choice was Crossroads, figuring that all of these streets divided the cities mentioned. Oh, well.