the sort of music played at coffeehouses, Pearl Jam's session on MTV Unplugged session, jam bands, The Beatles, and Beck. Critics offered different interpretations of the song. Billboard Bradley Bambarger and MTV News Colin Devenish understood it as a love song while Rolling Stone Chuck Eddy said that was about "a sad sack strung out on hippie lingo ('Dig it,' 'Yeah, mama') and caffeine." In his book Rock Song Index: The 7500 Most Important Songs for the Rock and Roll Era, Bruce Pollock said the song takes "the 'Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl' ethos a bit too far." John Barrett of Paste deemed it "a simple, dreamlike tale of first laying eyes on a beautiful woman." Bayer wrote that listeners tried hard to find meaning in the track's seemingly meaningless lyrics. He added that "nobody, including the songwriter, really knows what it's about." For Stereogum, Peter Helman called the song "nonsensical". Critical reception According to Zachary Houle of PopMatters, "Sex and Candy" has a reputation for being the only good song in Marcy Playground's catalogue; Houle disputed the notion while praising the song. Bayer of The A. V. Club said that "There is something powerful in the simplicity and straight-forwardness of the song" and that its "chorus still sounds as captivating and strangely sensual as it did years ago." Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic commented that "songs like 'Sex and Candy' capture the band at their best, turning out hard-edged, melodic pop songs with strong hooks and backbeats." For MTV News, Jon Vena opined that the track "draws you in with sultry lyrics and a chillingly slow...tempo." Barrett of Paste ranked it fifteenth on Paste list of "25 Awesome One-Hit Wonders of the 1990s" while Consequence of Sound ranked it thirty-fourth on its list of "The 100 Best One-Hit Wonder Songs." Bruce Pollock included it as one of the entries in his book Rock Song Index: The 7500 Most Important Songs for the Rock and Roll Era. In Bustle, Rachel Semigran called the song "well-loved". Mike Wass of Idolator called the song "a post-grunge classic that is still played with alarming frequency on adult rock radio stations today." Mike Joyce of The Washington Post wrote "Some rock bands don't attract radio airplay so much as provoke it. Marcy Playground pulled off the trick...with 'Sex and Candy,' a titillating hit single that contained the sure-fire refrain, 'I smell sex and candy.'" Chuck