NYT Strands today — hints, answers and spangram for Saturday, April 13 (game #41)

Today’s Strands is an apt one for the weekend, but I can’t say any more without giving the game away.

It’s a fun one, trust me, but requires certain specialist knowledge. If you don’t have it, you may find some of my hints to be helpful…

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to know the answers.

NYT Strands today (game #41) – hint #1 – today’s theme

What is the theme of today’s NYT Strands?

• Today’s NYT Strands theme is… Group think

NYT Strands today (game #41) – hint #2 – clue words

What are some good clue words today?

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• SNARE

• TEAR

• ROCK

• ROOK

• PAIR

• REAR

NYT Strands today (game #41) – hint #3 – spangram

What is a hint for today’s spangram?

• Louder!

NYT Strands today (game #41) – hint #4 – spangram position

Where does today’s spangram start and end?

• Start: left, 1st row

• End: right, 6th row

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #41) – the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today’s Strands, game #41, are…

QUEEN
RUSH
JOURNEY
HEART
OASIS
NIRVANA
POISON
SPANGRAM: ROCKBANDS

My rating: Moderate
My score: Perfect

I’ve rated this as ‘moderate’ despite getting a perfect score myself, because if you’re not a music buff – or specifically a rock music buff – you might find it a lot harder than I did.

As a former music journalist, it didn’t tax me too much, although I did struggle to find Nirvana, for some reason (which is bizarre given that they are objectively the best band listed here). Anyway, the key here is in working out what the relatively cryptic theme clue of ‘Group think’ was referring to. I was lucky in that the first two words I found were QUEEN and RUSH. That was plenty of info for me to know what was going on, and I found the spangram easily after that.

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Yesterday’s NYT Strands answers (Friday 12 April, game #40)

POMPOM
MURMUR
GOGO
MAMA
TUTU
COUSCOUS
CANCAN
SPANGRAM: REPETITION

What is NYT Strands?

Strands is the NYT’s new word game, following Wordle and Connections. It’s currently in Beta and can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

I’ve got a full guide to how to play NYT Strands, complete with tips for solving it, so check that out if you’re struggling to beat it each day.