Coastal African desert / MON 8-26-24 / Athleisure lead-in to "lemon" / Popular dance fitness program (2024)

THEME: TRIPLE WORD SCORE (58A: Coveted Scrabble space ... or the sheet music for 16-, 21-, 34- or 51-Across?) — song titles where a single word is tripled:

Theme answers:

• "GIMME GIMME GIMME" (16A: Abba hit of 1979)
• "BYE BYE BYE" (21A: 'N Sync hit of 2000)
• "GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS" (34A: Mötley Crüe hit of 1987)
• "FUN FUN FUN" (51A: Beach Boys hit of 1964)

Word of the Day: NAMIB(4D: Coastal African desert) —

TheNamib(/ˈnɑːmɪb/NAH-mib;Portuguese:Namibe) is a coastaldesertinSouthern Africa. According to the broadest definition, the Namib stretches for more than 2,000 kilometres (1,200mi) along the Atlantic coasts ofAngola,Namibia, and northwestSouth Africa, extending southward from the Carunjamba River in Angola, through Namibia and to theOlifants Riverin Western Cape, South Africa.The Namib's northernmost portion, which extends 450 kilometres (280mi) from the Angola-Namibia border, is known asMoçâmedes Desert, while its southern portion approaches the neighboringKalahari Desert. From the Atlantic coast eastward, the Namib gradually ascends in elevation, reaching up to 200 kilometres (120mi) inland to the foot of theGreat Escarpment.Annual precipitation ranges from 2 millimetres (0.079in) in the aridest regions to 200 millimetres (7.9in) at the escarpment, making the Namib the only true desert in southern Africa.Having enduredaridorsemi-aridconditions for roughly 55–80 million years, the Namib may be the oldest desert in the worldand contains some of the world's driest regions, with only western South America'sAtacama Desertto challenge it for age and aridity benchmarks. (wikipedia)

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This is one I definitely appreciated more when I got the revealer *and* looked at the theme-answer clues. Before that, solving Downs-only, it was just a lot of repeated-word phrases, and even when I got TRIPLE WORD SCORE, I didn't see the musical connection. But now, seeing that all the theme answers are songs, the "SCORE" pun becomes clear. I think of "SCORE" as music composed for a movie, but it's also just the "copy of a musical composition in printed or written notation" (merriam-webster dot com). I also think of "sheet music" as primarily orchestral—it's definitely not a phrase I'd put anywhere near Mötley Crüe, for instance—but there's "sheet music" for all kinds of music (even "GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS"), so even though the "sheet music" bit feels a *little* preposterous, on a technical level, it works. The theme is, by its nature, repetitive, and those theme answers were (therefore) really easy to get solving Downs-only, but still, conceptually, with *that* revealer, it's pretty good.

The fill on this one seemed far far less good. I tripped all over myself trying to make sense of the NAMIB / IN-APP / GAEL / ALY part as I started the puzzle (and really winced at ALY, considering I'd *just* written in ALI). And oof, the partials. A LEAK!? Trying to make sense of that when I couldn't see the Across clues was painful. It would've been painful, if somewhat easier, even if I could've seen the clue—it's really a horrible partial, and then we get *another* very bad-feeling partial?!? ("I'M OF"). Why the hell does a supremely easy Monday puzzle have two egregious partials? The craftsmanship really should be better—the fill much smoother—on early-week puzzles. But I had to stumble through stale and bygone fill of all kinds. "I CAME"? Ugh, I'm calling that a "partial" too, that makes three, that's too many. LUV, PRE, SCI, GAR ... OLA!? OXO? There's way way too much subpar stuff. ORES and OARS, ABUT and ATOP, SSW and SFPD ... these are innocuous on their own, but today they're part of a tidal wave of gunk. When my Downs-only adventures left me with T-SHAPE (!?!?!?), I sincerely thought I had something wrong.

There was almost no part of the solve where I thought things looked polished, bright, and clean. And after suffering through all the unloveliness, I ended up with an error, ugh. I had RIP BY instead ofZIP BYbecause RUMBA looked so good (in a way that ZUMBA, which I haven't heard anyone refer to in well over a decade, absolutely does not). I guess ZIP BY is more of a real phrase than RIP BY, but RUMBA >ZUMBA(in my head). Also, the "quickly fly past" in the clue made it seem like the clue was referring to time, and the years really do RIP BY as you get older, so honestly, I didn't really blink at that "R." Bah and humbug.