APAD: Ear Candy

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]

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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.