FEATURE:
Groovelines
Britney Spears – Toxic
___________
I have various features that I want to combine…
IN THIS PHOTO: Britney Spears shot by GQ in November 2003
to tell a full story about one of the biggest songs of the ‘00s. Arguably one of Britney Spears’ finest tracks, Toxic was still sounds remarkable now! I have not heard a Pop song since that has the same sort of catchiness and hooks. Spears’ great lead vocal and an instantly addictive chorus makes Toxic a song that nobody can dislike! It is the Indian musical influences that go into Toxic that makes me most intrigued. I am going to come to an article soon that discusses that. Before that – and I will source Wikipedia a couple of times -, I did not know that Kylie Minogue was offered the song and rejected it. Given the fact Toxic was a number one hit in the U.K. and U.S., maybe this is a decision she regrets! I don’t think that Minogue has the same confidence and vocal ability of Spears. I also don’t think she would have done as good a job as Spears:
“Toxic" is a song by American singer Britney Spears from her fourth studio album, In the Zone (2003). It was written and produced by Bloodshy & Avant, with additional writing from Cathy Dennis and Henrik Jonback. Released as the second single from In the Zone, the song was initially offered to Kylie Minogue for her album Body Language, but she turned it down. After trying to choose between "(I Got That) Boom Boom" and "Outrageous" to be the second single, Spears selected "Toxic" instead. A dance-pop and techno-pop song with elements of bhangra music, "Toxic" features varied instrumentation, such as drums, synthesizers and surf guitar. It is accompanied by high-pitched Bollywood strings, sampled from Lata Mangeshkar and S. P. Balasubrahmanyam's "Tere Mere Beech Mein" (1981), and breathy vocals. Its lyrics draw an extended metaphor of a lover as a dangerous yet addictive drug”.
Released as a single on 12th January, 2004, Toxic recently celebrated its eighteenth birthday. As Spears has endured a bad time recently (and for many years in fact!) and is rumoured to be writing a book and looking to a brighter future, I hope that recording an album is part of her plans. Her most recent album, Glory, was released in 2016. I feel a future album could be among her most revealing, honest and explosive. One of the great things about Toxic is that it is fun and sees Spears completely in control. As this article explains, Toxic could have ended up with other artists. They spoke with one of its writers, Cathy Dennis, who reveals which American icon she had in mind when writing:
“Cathy Dennis is a professional songwriter. She’s co-written hits such as Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” and “I Kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry, as well as lesser-known songs by Kelly Clarkson, Adam Lambert, and the Jonas Brothers. “[‘Toxic’] was written in Sweden with Bloodshy & Avant [Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg] and Henrik Jonback,” she told Ivors Academy.
“I went over there to write with Janet Jackson in mind,” she said. “I was there for about 10 days in total. I’d had a meeting with Janet, I think in London, but it may have been in New York. I thought I’d have a go at writing something that would work for her and it didn’t come out at the time.
“We did have this song ‘Toxic,’ though,” Dennis continued. “It was started on day one of seven … then took part of day two to try to finish it. And because I couldn’t quite finish it, I said: ‘Look, let’s start on something else.’ So we wrote another three songs that week and in my spare time while I was in my hotel room I was very busy editing my lyrics on ‘Toxic”.
“Toxic” became a massive hit. The track peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100, staying on the chart for 20 weeks. Its parent album, In the Zone, was a hit too. It spent 45 weeks on the Billboard 200, spending a week at the top of the chart.
“Toxic” was popular in the United Kingdom as well. The Official Charts Company reports “Toxic” spent 14 weeks on the U.K. chart, lasting one week at No. 1. Meanwhile, In the Zone hit No. 13 in the U.K. and lasted on the chart for 43 weeks. “Toxic” later appeared on Spears’ greatest hits albums Greatest Hits: My Prerogative and The Singles Collection. In the same vein, a remix of the song appeared on the album B in the Mix: The Remixes”.
Prior to ending up with some more Wikipedia information about the reception to Toxic and its legacy, there is an article from INSIDER where Meredith Geaghan-Breiner and Dilan Garcia Lopez talk about how Bollywood helped provide Britney Spears with one of her biggest hits:
“- ♪ Baby, can't you see ♪
Meredith Geaghan-Breiner: Rewind to 2003. Britney Spears hasn't had a big hit in almost four years, and critics say her career is slumping. This all would change when she dropped her song "Toxic."
♪ It's dangerous ♪ ♪ I'm falling ♪
["Tere Mere Beech Mein"]
Meredith Geaghan-Breiner: The real story behind "Toxic" begins in 1981 in India with a blockbuster Bollywood musical. Those high-pitched strings in the score? You've heard them before, at the opening of Toxic, then repeated throughout the song. It's this musical number, "Tere Mere Beech Mein," that's the source of "Toxic"'s unmistakable hook and riff and a lot of the song's intensity.
Manasi Prasad: "Tere Mere Beech Mein," it's from a classic film called "Ek Duuje Ke Liye."
Meredith Geaghan-Breiner: This is Manasi Prasad, a classical Carnatic vocalist with an encyclopedic knowledge of Indian music.
Manasi Prasad: This song is actually based on an Indian classical rāga, or melody. It's ♪ La la la ♪ ♪ La la la la la la ♪ ♪ La la ♪ So you'll find a lot of other Indian songs which are in this rāga. It's used to convey feelings of very intense emotions. I think one of the reasons why, you know, Bollywood songs work so well is the range or the pitch of the songs tends to be really high, and it brings an intensity and a brightness.
Meredith Geaghan-Breiner: Britney's team of songwriters, led by hit maker Cathy Dennis, took two tiny sections of the musical number and expertly merged those two sections together.
["Tere Mere Beech Mein"] ["Tere Mere Beech Mein"] ["Toxic"]
Adam Ragusea: There's a string hook that's got the low, fast part, which is the ♪ Bum bum ba da da da dum ba da da dum ♪ and then there's a very high keening part that goes ♪ Da da ba ♪
Meredith Geaghan-Breiner: In the movie, love is danger, and that's reflected in the music, especially in the glissandos, these sliding figures in the strings, which are pretty much the signature of "Toxic"'s sampled hook. They sound slippery and precarious, which fits since Britney's singing about slipping under and falling.
♪ It's dangerous ♪ ♪ I'm falling ♪
Meredith Geaghan-Breiner: Somehow, these notes sound even more treacherous when the sample's played backwards halfway through the track. Beyond the screechy orchestral parts borrowed from Bollywood, the other big source of danger in "Toxic" comes from the buzzing, ominous-sounding guitar.
♪ I'm addicted to you ♪ ♪ Don't you know that you're toxic ♪
♪ And I love what you do ♪ ♪ Don't you know that you're toxic ♪
Meredith Geaghan-Breiner: If that guitar bit sounds kind of old-school to you, that's because it's surf, a rock subgenre that was biggest in the late '50s and early '60s, when there was a boom of interest in West Coast wave culture”.
Alongside the great songs released in 2004, Britney Spears’ Toxic stands aside as one of the very best. It is a track that hits you the first time that you hear it. Small wonder it made such an immediate impact on critics and the public. As we can see, critics were fully behind a song that showed Spears was an artist you could never predict or write off:
“Toxic" has been met with widespread acclaim from music critics. Heather Richels of The Paly Voice complimented its hook and catchiness while deeming it the most appealing song on In the Zone. While reviewing The Onyx Hotel Tour, Pamela Sitt of The Seattle Times called it the album's strongest single. Eric Olsen of msnbc.com stated the song could be the biggest hit off of its parent album while calling it "powerfully addicting." Caryn Ganz of Spin commented, "Spears hits pay dirt on 'Toxic'". Christy Lemire of Associated Press stated it was one of Spears' greatest hits and deemed it "insanely catchy", remarking that the chorus alone "makes you want to forgive the Alias wannabe video that accompanies the song." Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic called it along with "Showdown", "irresistible ear candy in what is surely Britney's most ambitious, adventurous album to date". In a separate review of Spears' greatest hits album Greatest Hits: My Prerogative (2004), Erlewine selected it as one of the "track picks" and described it as "a delirious, intoxicating rush". Jeffrey Epstein of Out compared the innovative sound of "Toxic" to Madonna's "Vogue".
IN THIS PHOTO: Britney Spears shot by GQ in November 2003
Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine said that "Toxic" and "(I Got That) Boom Boom", "find Britney dabbling in hip-hop, but it's clear her heart lies in the clubs." Jamie Gill of Yahoo! Music Radio commented, "In the name of fairness, it will be noted that 'Toxic' and 'Showdown' could well have been good pop songs in the hands of any other singer than Spears." Joan Anderman of The Boston Globe named it "a well-titled cascade of frantic, mechanized glissandos and dreadful canned strings that buries the album's coolest (only?) chorus under a joyless mass". The song was ranked at number five in the 2004 Pazz & Jop poll by The Village Voice. "Toxic" was nominated for Best Song at the 2004 MTV Europe Music Awards, but lost to Outkast's "Hey Ya!". However, it won Best Dance Recording at the 2004 Grammy Awards, making it her first-ever won Grammy. It won Best Single at the 2004 Teen Choice Awards. Pitchfork listed the song at number three on their Top 50 Singles of 2004 list. Rob Mitchum commented that Spears "finally, she just acted like an adult, rather than constantly reminding us she wasn't a girl anymore”.
"Toxic" won Spears her first, and to date only, Grammy Award at the 2005 ceremony in the Best Dance Recording category and gained her credibility amongst critics. The song also won Most Performed Work at the 2004 Ivor Novello Awards. "Toxic" was ranked at number fourteen on Stylus Magazine's Top 50 Singles between 2000 and 2005. In a 2005 poll conducted by Sony Ericsson, "Toxic" was ranked as the world's second favorite song, only behind "We Are the Champions" by Queen. Over 700,000 people in 60 different countries cast their votes. The song was also included on The 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born list by Blender. Pitchfork listed the song on The Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s. Jess Harvell commented that Spears had great pop instincts and that "Toxic" showed how "Britney always had more individualist pep than her peers, important when you're dealing with steamroller productions from the mind of Max Martin”.
As the world looks ahead to see what Britney Spears releases and whether we will see new music from her in 2022, I wanted to revisit a song that all fans must include in their top five. Toxic is the standout track from the underrated In the Zone. To this day, Britney Spears’ 2004 smash remains…
ONE of the all-time great Pop tracks.