Need help with today's NYT strand? The “One for the Swifties” theme for today is obvious, but if you aren't (and I'm not), it doesn't help much.

Below are some helpful hints and answers to Strand #285, in case you need help. We'll start with a few tips to help you get a complete answer to Strand #285.

WARNING: There are spoilers for Strand #285.

The official theme of NYT Strands #285 is... “One for the Swifties.”

And here's an unofficial hint from me: “Taylor Time.”

If you're still in the dark, here are a few useful words that give you valuable hint tokens:

Still struggling? Spangram gives you a hint on conjunctions. Today it starts with “A” and ends with “E.”

Scroll down to see what it is.

ALBUMTITLE.

Now, what is the answer to today's Strand game #285?

Drumroll please.

... Spangram was ALBUMTITLE.

Strands #285

“One for the Swifties”

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Hello Strands fans! My heart sank when I saw today's theme: “Dedicated to Swifty”. I'm not a Swifty, so I can barely name three Taylor Swift songs, much less one of her albums.

It may have come as a surprise that I was able to figure out the answer without using a clue. But the word LOVER in the lower left corner certainly could have been a song title (I didn't yet know it was about an album), so I went for it and was rewarded with the first correct answer.

However, that good fortune did not last long, and I eventually admitted that I needed to use a clue. And this clue was part of the ALBUMTITLE spangram, underlined by “album.”

This allowed MIDNIGHTS to be enclosed in the lower right corner, another freebie, but a second clue had to be used to separate the two final solutions that were intertwined at the top of the grid. As a result, I knew FEARLESS, so all I had to do was get the FOLKLORE in the upper left corner to complete the puzzle.

Are you reading this late in the day? Here is the full article on Strand's solution to yesterday's game #284.