Muller Music Meta, January 2016

Season 5, Episode 1 of the Muller Music Meta is here, so let’s get to it. For the inaugural puzzle of this year, our title is “Music Services” and we’re looking for a hit album from 1973. The five longest entries in the grid are:

16-A [Hozier smash hit of 2013] = TAKE ME TO CHURCH. Good song.

29-A [Iron Maiden single whose cover art featured a controversial cartoon of Maggie Thatcher being stabbed] = SANCTUARY. I might remember this one.

36-A [#14 on Rolling Stone’s list of greatest albums of all time] = ABBEY ROAD.

46-A [Trippy CSN song with the line “Now I’m standing on the grave of a soldier that died in 1799”] = CATHEDRAL. Don’t think I know it.

60-A [Self-titled and only album from Chris Cornell’s band after Soundgarden] = TEMPLE OF THE DOG.

CHURCH, SANCTUARY, ABBEY, CATHEDRAL, and TEMPLE? Gotta be Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy. found by 300+ solvers just before deadline.

Nice easy opener to the year, with four big corners shouldering the five theme entries nicely. I liked ECUADOR and SENEGAL, symmetrical — oh, wait, the symmetrical CHAPEL / OF LOVE is in fact a sixth theme entry. This guy is sneaky. 4.05 stars.

As I bring up frequently, I went 13-for-13 on Season 4 of the Muller Meta and plan to do it again this year. Anyone else want to point to the upper deck for 2016? Talk a big game in comments! “It’s not bragging if you’ve done it.”