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Ear candy made its debut (in print, at least) as the title of a 1977 album by pop singer Helen Reddy. The album has long since faded from the charts, but the term endures and it is now used widely enough to have gained entry into abridged dictionaries. Although "ear candy" is sometimes used critically to describe tunes that are considered "gooey," "sweet," or "saccharine," the people who make the music and their fans find it tasty. As one 90s band member sagely put it, does it really matter if ear candy "isn't about the secret of life"?
Examples of ear candy in a Sentence
Carl Lamarre, Billboard, 22 Jan. 2024
Cosmic Slop, Funkadelic A commercial failure at the time of its release, the album’s soulful cartoonish ear candy weaves a tale of corruption, violence, and the mass delusion that dogs the human race.
—Liza Lentini, SPIN, 24 Nov. 2023
Running nearly 90-minutes long, The Love Album has plenty of ear candy for R&B heads.
—Felice León, Essence, 22 Sep. 2023
Need more ear candy?
—Kevin Cortez, Popular Mechanics, 24 Jan. 2023
Hardy’s talent for producing radio ear candy.
—Jon Freeman, Rolling Stone, 21 Jan. 2023
There’s a lot of different ear candy going on.
—The New York Times, New York Times, 27 Oct. 2022
Envious of their ear candy?
—Talia Abbas, Glamour, 12 Nov. 2020
But the importance of ear candy is nothing new.
—Jill Newman, Town & Country, 10 Nov. 2020
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ear candy.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near ear candy
Cite this Entry
“Ear candy.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ear%20candy. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.
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