The first thing you notice about “Toxic” is the strings – urgent, stabbing, a shock of treble. The string bursts compress a riff into a couple of seconds, turning its curling snatch of melody into a red alert, a warning sign on a system out of control. Something is happening. Something is wrong. But it doesn’t feel wrong.
“Toxic”’s metaphor – desire is poison, love is the drug – is familiar. The song pushes the idea sonically as well as lyrically. In Peggy Lee’s “Fever”, a cousin of “Toxic”, the symptoms of the fever are detectable in Lee’s voice but not in the gorgeous slow slink of the rhythm and melody. “Toxic”, though, sounds feverish in its pace, its fragmented arrangements, the staccato of Britney’s voice cutting through. Listening to it now I’m startled again at how fast it is – her voice (more playful now) on the chorus sounds like it’s being tugged at by the rhythm: a dance of control and chaos that echoes the song’s theme. You’re bad for me, but if I know you are, doesn’t some small slice of control remain to me?
I read someone argue once – I don’t know if it’s true, but I hope it is – that the vernacular popularity of “toxic” as a word to describe relationships and situations dates from this song. That usage has none of the song’s nuance – it’s slipped its moorings and become a simple condemnation. What is toxic is external, invasive, dangerous – we must detox; identify the toxins (literal or metaphorical) and remove them, an act of purification.
Britney had been pure – sold as such, anyway – and knew better than most, even at this point, the dangers of that particular pose. Then, during the years and decades when “toxic” rose as a therapeutic metaphor, she was locked into a legal arrangement designed to keep her away from toxicity: bad decisions, bad influences, her own bad judgement. As defined by her father, a relationship not exactly toxin-free. She was placed into an enforced detox, a pause button on life.
In 2004 that’s still some years away. “…Baby One More Time” is Britney’s image-defining peak as a commercial phenomenon, and we’re living through her zenith as a damaged, defiant international treasure. But “Toxic” is a different high – it’s her capital-C classic, her “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head”* or “I Want It That Way”, a shot at immortality. Russell T Davies, making the revived Doctor Who series later that year, wrote a scene in “The End Of The World” where his far-future villainess introduces ‘a ballad from Earth’s classical era’, and the string-jolts of “Toxic” play as the action heats up. It’s a hoary SF joke, making the flotsam of our era the classics of some unimaginably later one, but if the SF fan in Davies enjoys the old gag, the television man in him knows a genuine classic when he hears it, a song that can make anything more exciting.
Back on Earth, “Toxic”’s gleaming lines and fever stabs played out as a soundtrack to the present, the cresting delirium of the 00s boom, heard in stripmalls and at sleepovers and in student discos. It’s hindsight that makes me hear “Toxic” as a diagnosis of how brittle that moment was, as a smile starting to twitch into rictus. But the track is strong enough to bear that hindsight.
Most toxins don’t raise the temperature – they confuse, cause nausea, crash the body’s operating systems in their attack on organs or nerves. Britney’s way of making pop could sound like a system glitching – from “Oops I Did It Again” onwards her records started covering for technical flaws in her voice by breaking it, twisting it, making it less naturalistic but more exciting. That tendency is in full flow on “Toxic”, with her husky low end sometimes played flirtatiously straight (“…from your devil’s cup”) but more often pitched up, droidized, whatever it takes to disorientate you.
The backing track joins in, its pinball table of triggered riffs creating a jagged, stop-start landscape that demands a bodily response. In one of the most thrilling touches to a thrilling song, before each chorus there comes a hammering sound, like the whole delirious mecha-pop system is crashing and having to rapidly force-reboot before Britney can carry on.
The lead writers and producers on “Toxic” are more Swedes, Bloodshy & Avant – they had a hand in plenty of good to very good tracks but, unlike Max Martin, they never came near to what Britney catalysed them into here. “Toxic” remains a touchstone – only this year someone had a minor viral hit splicing it with “Pony” in a mash-up which grievously misunderstood the appeal of Britney’s signature song, that it’s a fast record or it’s nothing. Twitchy, giddy and compulsive, it’s kept its unhealthy freshness.
*(”Toxic” shares a co-writer with the Kylie track, in Cathy Dennis, and was apparently offered to Kylie first. It’s not impossible her version would have been great, but the song as we have it doesn’t play to her strengths, and its emotional territory – the rush of dangerous relationships – would have felt a step back after “Slow”. Anyhow, her loss is our gain.)
Score: 10
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There is also a rumour flying around that when Cathy Dennis wrote the song, she was referring to her past relationship with Noel “Supervet” Fitzpatrick.
Excellent piece, Tom. I was wondering if Britney was going to join ABBA in the double 10 club and I’m pleased she has. Although I’d give it a 9 myself, I think.
Ahh, what a thrilling song. The main musical motion comes from the strings – flashes of terror that are drastically switched on and off by a big unseen lever, so the threat is left to linger even when it is not heard. But the parts with surf guitar do wonders too – an iconographic way to link ‘toxic love’ to James Bond films, perhaps? An acknowledgement of how awesome it sounds on Sound of the Underground and No Good Advice? So many great singles from this time use it.
There is the ever-persistent theory about Cathy Dennis’ voice from the demo being left in parts of the final track – or at least (more likely) how closely Britney follows it in those moments – but I have nothing to say about it really so I’ll leave that for others to touch on.
I’ve always gotten the impression that Toxic’s instant-classic-ness was initially used as an ace up Britney’s sleeve. The lead single from In the Zone was the oft-forgotten Me Against the Music. Presumably it was the lead because where else in the singles campaign are you going to do full promo for a Madonna collaboration? It isn’t a very strong song, but it meant once its commercial parade was over, no matter how well or badly it was received, Toxic was there to either build on this seeming Imperial-ness (had MATM done amazingly) or covertly rescue Britney with the most brazen self-confidence (Had MATM not done so well). In some ways it has the spirit of certain 90s alt-rock albums where the first single would be the ‘fanbase’ one and the second the proper commercial juggernaut.
(Excellent stuff elsewhere in the top 10 too. George! Kylie! Blink! But never mind any of those right now).
Once again, following a spell of sweaty male dryness (and the paradox is deliberate), it’s time for the girls to show pop who’s boss. The Bollywood autobutton was just about becoming exhausted by early 2004 but typically Britney, in tandem with the always reliably avant-garde Bloodshy & Avant production team – and Cathy Dennis, on her best songwriting form since “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” – manages to squeeze a few more glasses of orange punctum out of the formula. She staggers around the song’s curving maze – Hampton Court as Aldous Huxley might have designed it – at breaksanity speed, as imbued with unfamiliar sensations as Edmond O’Brien living against the clock in D.O.A. Her dodgem of emotion eventually manoeuvres with great skill against angelic cries, impossible angles of ukulele against string sweeps so clipped they’re like Eric B killing Bollywood, and the Duane Eddy one-note guitar st(r)ing which may indicate an early Xenomania crossover/influence signpost, together with the occasional supra-elevation provided by thoughtful doubling up of voice and vibes with the highest notes of the string snippet.
Never pausing or changing exactly when you expect it to (the otherwise silently pregnant first half of the first line of the second verse), “Toxic” is at its best towards the end where Shangri-La lullaby gives way to fuzzy wavelengths of distorted guitar, to gummed cracks of electrovertigo and finally to an isolated vocoderised chorus which drives back the song with such unexpected force it’s akin to being pinned to a bed of nails by an ice cream van. Final choruses, the Stockholm Session Bollywood sudden signoff, off like the Nova Mob to their next revitalising assignment (the Nova Twins, perhaps?). Hailed the best pop song of its decade by no less an authority than Tony Hatch, “Toxic” once again is a governness’ pardon to pop poised over the gallows of compromise.
Not really an expert on Britney, but I would have to say that in my relatively limited knowledge of her, it would be my favourite of her singles. Having said that I’ve never quite taken to her vocal style personally, so there is always a mental block there for me in that regards; but points scored for plenty of get up and go. I will plump for a 6/10.
The use of “Toxic” in “The End of the World” feels bang on* – this is a pop record that will outlive us all and it’s almost too good to attempt to unravel. I love those gibberish strings, harassing the record like an ominous ringtone. They aren’t so much an arrangement as a threat (for a 1962 parallel, see the block of orchestral anguish in Kenny Lynch’s excellent “Puff (Up in Smoke)”). It’s great that Cathy Dennis’s demo is so close to the final version, because nothing was lost. Britney’s vocal adds an essential layer of confidence and swagger to a troubling lyric and, surf guitar breaks aside, nothing else was necessary. A poorer record may have been smoothed out features like that distinctively demo-y flanged guitar part.
A mashup of this and “Viva Las Vegas” got an official release a couple of weeks ago. It becomes a little overstuffed as it goes along but it’s very much worth hearing, especially as Vegas has murky significance for both artists. Britney is 42 this year and I hope her future is brighter than Elvis’s was.
*Other cultural predictions in RTD-era Doctor Who weren’t so accurate. Take “Fear Her”, a 2006 episode set in 2012 in which the passage of six years is demonstrated by posters for a Shayne Ward greatest hits album.
#1 – I was so hoping somebody else was going to pick up on Cathy writing this about The Supervet. Absolutely genius, and I now can’t see those RSPCA adverts he’s in on telly without humming the strings intro from this.
I have to say, at first, I was more into the actual first single off In The Zone – “Me Against The Music” with Madonna – which I overlooked discussing as #2 watch back on the entry for “Crashed The Wedding”. Fortunately, time and indeed French and Saunders’ hilarious parody of it has changed my opinion on this.
This happened to be the song sat at number one as I went, like the rest of my year group at school, on work experience for three weeks. I was an assistant at an estate agent, which 14 year old me was more easily impressed with back then than I would be today (it wasn’t actually my first choice, a runner at a local radio station was the other, but they’d already given it to someone else). So as a result of hearing this song a lot on the radio in the office, it did for a long time elicit a Pavolvian desire to make up tenancy packs, do the tea run and be sent off to the key cutters down the high street.
Fortunately, a subsequent career in property didn’t blossom, and much like my initial preference for the Madonna duet, time has passed and eradicated such an association of the song with that time, and confirmed to me that “Toxic” is quite simply one of Britney’s finest hours. The confidence and energy is just supreme, and it finally moved her forward in a way that perhaps none of the singles from the previous album had managed, hence why we’re discussing it here. The video was wicked as well. But for one other bunny we’re yet to discuss, this is my favourite number one of 2004, no question. 10 out of 10.
It’s a 10 all day long. I will say that, while I grant “Toxic Pony” might misunderstand the appeal of the original, I quite like it on its own terms.
#3: time for the girls (as written by three men and a woman)
Yes! This was the next nailed-on 10 for me after “Freak Like Me”, so I’m pleased to see that Tom and others agree. I wasn’t paying pop much attention in 2004, so didn’t properly listen to this until Popular inspired a personal Britney-binge several years later, but I was enthralled then, and it’s lost nothing of its power in the intervening years. One of the decade’s very best, no question.
And great to see Popular back in full swing in 2023. Now, if only I could get the “10” button to stick…
Yes, best thing she’s ever put her name to, though not worth a 10 in my humble opinion. More of a solid 8..
Re toxic relationships… that must be right. It wasn’t an everyday phrase or a buzzword when Toxic came out (though I’m told Just Seventeen had referred to “toxic boys” beforehand, possibly Sassy too).
Re 3: Xenomania went to the States to work with Britney on these sessions. I was pretty shocked when Toxic came out a little later that they had nothing to do with it, as their imprint is clearly on it. I’ll put that down to Cathy Dennis’s magpie tendencies. The Duane Eddy guitars echo Sound Of The Underground; elsewhere I hear the chopped up acoustic guitars from Like I Love You, and – on the middle eight – some anticipation of SOPHIE/PC Music’s vocal manipulation. So it looks to the (immediate) past, predicts sounds still ten years away, and drapes both poles with world-class melodic hooks. What a record.
When Popular went on hiatus and the Patreon stalled on this song, I knew it was going to be a 10.
But as with most of Tom’s thoughts on Britney, I can’t get behind this one. It loses at least three marks for the instrumental break and that ghastly processing effect on the intro to the final chorus; as I said about Oops, there’s a weird thing of trying on different ideas to see what sticks. And that string hook does nothing for me. 4.
#5: worst cultural comment in RTD-era Who: “Good ol’ JK!” There’s a line that aged like milk.
As well as the Duane Eddy guitars, I always loved the echoes of Bernard Herrmann in the strings—two great mid-century tastes that go great together. I figured this would be such an obvious comparison that it would have been made many times, but I’m not finding it in online discussion of the track: this ILX thread from 2004 comparing it with a Linkin Park song talks about the Herrmann-like strings in the latter, but not in “Toxic”.
Google turned up a mention of a film composer’s recent reworking of the song for a thriller score, which highlights its Hitchcockian overtones. For me it’s an integral part of what makes “Toxic” so thrilling. It’s a Pavlovian Vertigo-fan response.
There’s a bunny coming up in 2004 that has Herrmann-ish strings and probably deliberately so. Something was in the air, perhaps.
I don’t mind this but I don’t love it. It’s energetic enough but lacks something for me which I can’t put my finger on, and there are a couple of later Britney bunnies which I prefer. The twangy surf-guitar after the choruses is cool though.
Generous 7 for this.
The video is terrific, too: it feels like a riposte to those who got so hot under the collar about her early ones. From after-school club to mile-high club.
Greetings from Stereogum! First time commenter, long-time reader. Glad to see Popular is updating again after a year off.
Tom Breihan gave this one a 9. I mean, a 9? Seriously? Thankfully, even though he’s more judicious with the 10s overall, Tom Ewing got this one right.
#16: oh, the video is phenomenal. Every shot explodes with camp mischief. (The dodgy CGI is also perfect.) It’s such an impeccable work of storyboarding and editing, it leaves me slightly agape on each rewatch – somehow they made the song feel even more devious.
MTV moved the video to post-10 pm showings in the States because of the whole Janet Super Bowl debacle. I think that played a part in “Toxic”’s poor chart placement in America.
#17: Welcome Pei! This is Logan Taylor using a handle I created a ways back in anticipation of the time that Popular finally returned. The more the merrier!
Good to see Brit back on the charts – Tom, too.
It’s a great song, full of nervy energy and voltage. You feel intimidated by it – like you’re handling dangerous chemicals without a hazmat suit.
There’s almost no hi-hat in the beat (there’s some, mixed very quiet), but Britney’s voice fills up the same frequencies. Often she’s not the lead instrument in her own songs, but instead shows up in surprising places in the mix.
Possibly outrageous/offensive comparison: this song is to Britney what “Michelle” is to the Beatles: they’d flirted with adult sophistication before, but now you HAD to take them seriously. A new era had definitely come.
It’s not my favorite Britney song, though. It doesn’t go anywhere, and you’ve heard all of its peaks and valleys after 1:20. That’s where Martin’s songwriting touch is missed IMO. On tracks like “Stronger” and “Oops” he structures the song so that it builds.
@ #17 , #19 – good to see some Stereogummers making it over to this side of the virtual pond.
Also in the top 10 this week were Blink 182 for the final time with I Miss You, representative of their newer, more mature sound. Not one of my favourites of theirs but it seems to have endured well amongst the fanbase, and given how hard it was to get tickets for their upcoming tour they’ve clearly remained a massive deal for those of my age group (mid-30s).
Back in the day, I found the instrumental backing for this, and it’s surprising how minimal it is – the strings, the acoustic guitar, the drumbeats, and the vocals – any other added bits are kept to a minimum. Could have made it myself on an 8-track and had channels left over.
So, each sound gets its place in the picture, and makes it’s presence felt!
And, rightly, deserves its ten.
I’m sure you know this, Tom, but in the Doctor Who context specifically that “classical” line is an allusion to this previous Popular entry being predicted to be considered “classical” in the far future during probably the only other period when the show was quite as huge, as unifying across the culture, as it was in the mid-late 00s: http://www.freakytrigger.co.uk/popular/2005/02/the-beatles-ticket-to-ride
I don’t know if I can go as far as a 10, but I will say this for it…
I was the right demographic to turn on Britney in 2004 if not earlier. I’m also highly sensitive to sound in general and piercing high sounds in particular; that string hook should be unbearable to me. Maybe half this song should be.
I should hate this song, in other words. And I absolutely don’t. I admittedly rarely listen to it – I can’t usually be sure it’s not going to unfairly spark that bat-twitch reaction – but when I give it a chance it usually at least partly sucks me in again. Just seeing this entry has earwormed me, without me even needing to actually hear it.
Britney was the public face of a “manufactured pop” movement that was disowned enough in certain circles as to be their casus belli for piracy (even if that also meant they pirated singles from artists they actually liked, which likely did include Blink-182 as mentioned by #21 above!) – at their best, Britney singles would simply, gloriously reply with “haha pop machine go brrr.” And here it is, right after the sputter of “Me Against The Music,” in beautiful working order again.
Banger of all bangers – Britney always had it in her but it’s so satisfying when the potential explodes into full flower. Will never tire of this masterpiece.
I can see why Toxic is so highly rated, indeed why it might be one of the most important singles of the era but unfortunately I just don’t get it. What I had forgotten is what a long string of hit singles Britney had and there are some I remember more fondly than I thought – unfortunately this one gets on my nerves.
So I amused myself by looking at some Popular statistics instead. This is Tom’s eighteenth 10 and Britney becomes the second artist to achieve the accolade twice, after Abba (and interestingly both did so with singles released just under four years apart). Of the sixteen artists involved only three and a half (the half being Nancy Sinatra) were scoring their only number one although things are complicated by an eventual second bunny by a fourth – the song in question being a re-issue that would have been discussed had Tom chosen to follow the NME chart instead.
Getting back to 2004 and while the previous week’s chart had seen Peter Andre see off a top ten of non entities this one felt like Britney defeating several big beasts. Of note was George Michael’s Amazing which was his last true moment of brilliance before his demons claimed him (in 2004 he was younger than Britney Spears is now).
#27 – I loved “Amazing”. That was such a beautiful record, it’s actually probably tied with “Fastlove” as my overall favourite single George did.
In the use of this in Doctor Who, on some releases Toxic is replaced by the Soft Cell version of Tainted Love, which suggests it wasn’t merely the old joke of a then-current pop record being a sort of religious artefact on the day the earth is consumed by the sun, maybe the theme of trying to get out of a unhealthy relationship symbolises Rose’s escape from a normal life, and the dangerous situations the Doctor puts her in.
The replacement of one, presumably expensive, hit with another is surprising, but I’m glad they didn’t just use stock music on the DVD version.
My favourite of the uses of pop in this era of Who is a close one between Voodoo Child or I Can’t Decide, both in the 2007 two-part story The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords, inspired choices that I can’t listen to without thinking of the episodes they were used in. The same can’t be said of Toxic, but that’s definitely meant as a positive, thoroughly deserving of its rating of 10.
Hey, the user vote is working again! I gave this song a 10, obviously
Sure are! And currently the HIGHEST READER SCORE ever according to https://popular-number1s.com/populist/?v=3
Probably due to small sample size (maybe I was the only voter?)… it’s down to 8.5 now
I dunno. I kind of like this song – definitely Britney’s best – but a 10? A FREAKING 10??? It’s an 8 at best.