Looking for Friday’s Strands hints, spangram and answers? You can find them here:

ForbesNYT ‘Strands’ tips, spangrams and answers for Friday, November 8By means of Paul Tassi

I’m back! After a two-week hiatus during which my colleagues, Kris Holt and Paul Tassi, took over the Strands Guides here at Forbes Games, I’m back! I’m glad to be back, especially now that the days are getting colder and I’m more inclined than ever to hide inside and play games: puzzle games, shooting games, RPGs, whatever. Give me all the games and then give me about six more hours a day so I actually have time to play them. In any case, things are moving quite quickly at Strands. Today is a fun one, let’s solve it!

Strands is the newest game in the New York Times puzzle games. It’s a fun twist on classic word search games. Each day we are given a new theme and then tasked with uncovering all the words on the grid that fit that theme, including a spangram that covers two sides of the board. One of these words is the spangram which moves from one side of the grid to the other and reveals even more about the theme of the day.

Spoilers ahead.

Today’s Strands tips

Today’s theme: Generational jam.

Tip #1: The grunge era.

Tip #2: Musical acts.

To help you discover all the words, I usually provide the first two letters of each word, including the spangram. Today I’m going to use song titles instead.

• “Santeria”
• “Park life”
• “Heart-shaped box”
• “Lateralus”
• “Champagne Supernova”
• “Cut your hair”

Remember: spoilers ahead!

What are today’s answers?

Today’s spangram is: NINETEEN TAPES

Here is the full list of words:

• SUBLIME
• Blur
• NIRVANA
• TOOL
• OASIS
• SIDEWALK

Here is the completed Strands grid:

Today’s strand distribution

This was one of my favorite Strands puzzles so far, but that’s because I grew up with all these bands back when music was still great. I found SUBLIME almost immediately and then BLUR, followed closely by NIRVANA. At this point I was thinking about ‘Nineties Bands’ as a possible hint for this guide – when I saw BANDS in the grid and working backwards found the spangram. So much for that hint! The left half of the grid was more difficult, but once I found OASIS and TOOL, all I had was PAVEMENT, probably the band I know the least of the whole group. However, I think ‘Generation Jam’ is actually a worthless ‘theme’ for today’s Strands. When I think of “jam,” I think of jam bands like The Grateful Dead, not Nirvana.

How did your Strands go today? Let me know Tweet and Facebook.

Make sure you check out my blog for my daily Wordle guides and all my other articles on TV shows, streaming guides, movie reviews, video game coverage and more. Thanks for stopping by!