NYT Strands today — hints, spangram and answers for game #144 (Thursday, July 25 2024)

1. Today's hints

2. Today's answer

3. Yesterday's answer

Need a bit of help with NYT Strands today? Today's puzzle theme — "All that jazz" — is really tricky if you don't know the area very well.

Below, we've compiled some useful hints for Strands #144, as well as the answers, should it come to that. We'll start off with some clues, before building up to the full answer for Strands #144, so read on if you need a little help.

Warning: Spoilers lie ahead for Strands #144.

Today's NYT Strands answer — Today's theme and hints

The official theme for NYT Strands #144 is... "All that jazz".

And here's an unofficial hint from me: "Music nerds only".

If you're still in the dark, here are some useful words to give you those valuable clue tokens:

• PUNK
• SWAG
• DAWN
• FOLD
• MAGE
• RAGE
• SOME

Still struggling? The spangram will give you a hint about the connection word. Today, it starts with 'S' and ends with 'E'.

Scroll down to find out what it is...

It's SUBGENRE.

Today's Strands answers

So, what are today's Strands answers for game #144?

Drumroll, please...

• FUNK
• COOL
• FUSION
• MODAL
• SWING
• ACID
• BEBOP
• RAGTIME

...and the spangram was SUBGENRE.

Strands #144

“All that jazz”

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Hi Stands fans. Boy, was this one tricky - especially if you're as unfamiliar of the various subgenres of jazz as I am. Still, with a bit (well, a lot) of trial and error, I was able to muddle through without using any clues.

Today's theme - "All that jazz" - wasn't exactly subtle, but it wasn't very helpful if you're not a jazz aficionado. In fact, it was just by digging around for any possible words that I got my first two answers on the board: FUNK and COOL, both in the bottom-right corner.

From there, I spotted FUSION curled around the top-left corner, and MODAL to its right. Thankfully, I was then able to subdivide the board into two by spotting the spangram of SUBGENRE written across the grid from left to right.

Knowing where the top of the board ends and the bottom begins is very helpful, and it showed that there were two words left in both. Starting with the top half, I was able to decode SWING and ACID in the top right.

The two on the bottom were both longer, and thus a bit harder to decode. But the stray 'OP' that had to start or end a word helped be work out BEBOP, and that just left RAGTIME to find.

More of an exercise in endurance rather than puzzling fun today, but they can't all be winners!

Yesterday's Strands answers

Reading this in a later time zone? You can find the full article on yesterday's Strands answers for game #143 right here .