W(P)L Vol. 15 Solution

The second puzzle of the year was once again quickly solved by one of our regular readers. Hop inside for the solution and the musical connection.

Welcome to the solution post for week 15 of Word(Play)List! Once again, for the second consecutive week, this puzzle was solved in short order. I’m throwing down my first gauntlet for 2026 and predicting that nobody will be able to grok the musical connection for our next puzzle, which drops on February 2nd. So keep an eye out for that one and see if you can solve what promises to be a real doozy!

Read on for the solution to this week’s word search and the musical connection.

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Solution

Eleven people gave this week’s puzzle a try, with seven managing to find all ten words/phrases. Congrats to everyone who managed to find all the answers! For those of you that didn’t, the completed puzzle grid is below.

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Musical Connection: Songs by Artists with Chemical Elements in their Name

While Frank Balla, who solved five of the thirteen puzzles last year, was VERY close with his answer (“Next guess, all the bands have a metal in their names.”), it was longtime friend of the ‘stack Kevin Alexander of On Repeat Records who came in with the correct answer (“Are these songs by artists/bands with elements in their name (Nickelback, Andrew "Gold,") etc.?”). Great job and congrats to both Frank and Kevin!

This puzzle idea has been sitting in my drafts for quite some time so I’m not sure what initially prompted this theme. Although the universe of artists with chemical elements in their name is pretty limited, I did find find myself presented with choices on some of the individual elements.

• Iron: The two more obvious choices were Iron Maiden and Iron Butterfly although I’m honestly not that familiar with either band. I listened to several Iron Maiden songs with a title short enough to fit into the word grid, but they didn’t do much for me. And I was loath to use the only Iron Butterfly song I knew—“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”—because I felt people would struggle to find that in the word grid.

• Nickel: One option for me was Nickel Creek as their self-titled 2000 album was a favourite that year. “The Lighthouse’s Tale” would have been my song pick but for the fact that it was too long to comfortably fit into the word grid. So I was left with “Far Away” by the much-maligned (unfairly so IMO) Canadian band Nickelback, who recently announced a name change to Dollarback in response to ongoing economic inflation.

• Silver: I initially thought of the Australian band Silverchair, but I’ve already featured one of their songs in this series. Turns out that there was also a 1970s country rock band named Silver, but I don’t know anything about their music. Late last year, as I was writing about my top ten favourite albums of 2025—which you can read about here—the choice became startlingly obvious. Pleasure by the yacht rock duo Young Gun Silver was one of my most played albums last year and their single “Born To Dream” was a perfect fit here.

• Gold: Golden Earring was my first choice here—either “Radar Love” or “Twilight Zone”—but as I was listening to a soft rock compilation during the new release dead zone of early January, Andrew Gold’s “Lonely Boy” popped up. It’s one of my favourite songs of that genre and era and immediately became my “Gold” pick.

A few words on a couple of the more unusual or lesser known picks:

• Foxygen: This one feels like a bit of a stretch. As I was pulling the final playlist together, I was running out of chemical elements to work with so decided to pull oxygen out of Foxygen. I’ve long been aware of this California based indie rock duo, but I’ve never listened to their music. After deciding to go with them, I sampled eight or ten of their tracks and simply went with the song I enjoyed the most.

• Strontium 90: This short-lived band was formed in mid-1977 when Mike Howlett—recently departed from Gong—asked Sting to join him in a four-piece project. As Howlett’s first choice on drums was unavailable, Sting brought in Stewart Copeland from a then-brand-new band called The Police. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? In a wonderful piece of musical serendipity, the fourth member invited to join Strontium 90 was guitarist Andy Summers. After Strontium 90’s short run, Summers would be welcomed into the Police’s lineup, replacing Corsican Henry Padovani on guitar. But for Mike Howlett leaving Gong and starting Strontium 90, who knows whether the classic Police lineup we all know and love would have come about.

Strontium 90 is the only artist in this week’s playlist that have no songs on Spotify, so I’m linking to “New World Blues” which appeared on the album Police Academy released by Mike Howlett in 1997:

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The Playlist

Below is the playlist for this week’s installment—I’ve selected one track by each artist. Unlike my usual playlists, which are sequenced in chronological order by release date, I’ve decided to sequence this playlist by atomic number. Because…why not?!?

As Substack and Spotify don’t always play well together, I’m also providing a hardcoded link to the playlist.

Please feel free to share the Joy with anyone else you know that loves music!
Because, after all, sharing is caring, right?

As always, I’d love to hear from you. Please jump into the comments and let me know your thoughts on this week’s musical connection, or whatever else is on your mind!

• Were you able to find all of the words in the word search?

• Were you able to figure out the connection?

• Which of these artists (or the songs selected) is your favourite?

• What songs by artists with chemical elements in their name would you have included?