Meaning:
Music with an instant appeal but with little lasting significance.
Background:
There are various `candy' phrases - ear candy, eye candy, arm candy. The one
that started the whole candy franchise was ear candy. This was the title of
a successful 1977 LP by Helen Reddy - no doubt in an ironic reference to the
criticism she had received for producing bland, easy-listening music.
Candy is of course what the US calls the confectionery that many parts of
the English-speaking world calls sweets. The sugary, insubstantial imagery
is well suited to these phrases.
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My nephew briefed me on the pop music scene, what was hot and what was not, on
our Mission Peak hike Sat morning. I tried to reciprocate but many of the
beloved college-era songs I couldn't remember well.
Most of what I do remember embarass and spring goose bumps on me when I run into
them. The aged ear candies have either grown too cloy for my taste or laid bare
the infantilism that captures only puerile fantasies. I feel shamed I was that
young.
