When the going gets tough, we turn to our favourite guilty pleasures. But when entertainment is concerned, is there even any guilt to what gives one pleasure? In our new series Pleasure Without Guilt, we look at pop offerings that have been dissed by the culture police but continue to endure as beacons of unadulterated pleasure.
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There was a time when I would hear the word “toxic” or of the song 'Toxic,' and would instantly be reminded of Britney Spears. Not an unpleasant association for a troublesome and often-used word. But last year, deep into the ‘toxic’ tunnel of doom that was the pandemic, this word association changed for me, for good, when I discovered Melanie Martinez’s cover of the same.
I don’t recall listening to Britney’s version much (or at all) since then, unless in my geeky, song-struck head, I wanted to make a comparison to try to understand, for the umpteenth time, that what it is about Martinez’s version that beats my erstwhile favourite Britney song. Is it its purely acoustic appeal? That little tease of the tambourine accompanying the guitar, allowing her breathy voice to soar and take the song where it’s never gone before? Is it the voice-crack as it hits the high-notes or the mellow whispery pace that almost lulls you under a spell?
I cannot quite separate the image of her in that historic The Voice! audition in 2012 from the song anymore. A 16-year-old Martinez was a vision in her babydoll aesthetic — her Cruella de Vil hair tied together with a giant bow; she wore a gap-toothed smile as she foot-played a tambourine while strumming the guitar. The audience watched mesmerised as three out of four judges – Adam Levine, CeeLo Green, and Blake Shelton – ate out of her hands, and fought among themselves to coach her. Martinez sang no more than just the first stanza and the chorus, but in those four minutes, she rewrote a part of pop history, by owning the song in a way as if it had never belonged to anyone else. Nobody remembers the winner of The Voice! that year, but thus began the then-16-year-old’s very successful journey in pop music.
She had emerged as the queen of sultry covers. That video on YouTube has over 7.5 million views, and I probably won’t ever admit how many of those are from me alone, but suffice to say, it was enough to rewrite the memory of not just the dystopian risqué trip that was the original video – I wasn’t exactly a die-hard fan of a red-haired, busty Spears being launched like a rocket into the sunset – but also of the entire rendition of the song, in all its super arousing dance number energy.
I have always seen myself as someone for whom 'favourites' are etched in stone. I am not quick to liking or falling in love with stuff, but when I do, my loyalty is fierce. So I was more than a little surprised when I realised that my ‘on loop’ addiction to the original 'Toxic' was a thing of the past. Was this something induced by the apparent maturity of ageing? Let’s see.
I was a young adult when the original came out, back in 2003. As a Spears fan (I was still holding on to the nostalgic '90s I suppose) and a prime demographic target of the song, I caught on to it like a moth to a flame. Over the better part of the decade that followed, we moved from CDs to MP3s, and then from iPods to smartphones, but the song never really left my playlist. It was my travel companion, cooking companion, pick-me-up, fantasy trip, and sometimes, behind-closed-doors dance routine. That was then.
When I discovered Martinez’s 'Toxic' last year, the song had already existed for almost a decade. During the pandemic, I grew a rather dedicated habit of looking up covers of my favourite songs, and thus one blessed day the gods of algorithm gifted me with this one. Had #SpotifyWrapped existed last year, this would have been my one-song report.
If Spears' 'Toxic' transported you to a seedy dance floor with flashy lights and strangers grinding to the music, Martinez’s version gently pulls you into a very private space, probably with a DND sign hanging on the door.
The nu metal funk feels of the original had been replaced with a stripped-down, mellow version that was sensual and quietly seductive. I felt this new 'Toxic' had just the right amount of pace to match my own energy levels, mood, and headspace, the way I am now, having just crossed over to the wrong side of 30 — far from how I used to be in the era of Spears.
I never quite imagined a song – that too a mainstream pop number about unadulterated lust – would bookend the shift in my persona over two decades, but here we are. My current 'Toxic' self can hardly recognise the erstwhile 'Toxic' me. I feel like I cheated on Spears with Martinez – and I implore you to read that purely metaphorically – but, in the words of another pop queen Katy Perry, "It felt so wrong, it felt so right."
Martinez’s down-tempo version takes me places I’ll need to censor you from. But I can at least tell you that on commutes, I have missed my stop more than once, by accident and on purpose. I have abruptly stopped walking on the street, caught in its visceral spell, perhaps much to the amusement or curiosity of onlookers. Or, maybe no one noticed, but that’s the thing about guilty pleasures – it makes you feel a bit judged, but then you couldn’t care less.
Spears' very danceable number was as enjoyable as a shared experience even on surround-sound speakers, as it was within the privacy of earphones. But Martinez’s 'Toxic' felt too intimate to hear without earphones. It’s like suddenly you’re not on the dancefloor anymore. It’s what comes after someone says, "Let’s get outta here."
I combed through countless threads on Reddit and YouTube to find my sentiments validated. In fact, a sizeable Gen-Z populace thinks that present-day TikTok sensation, Martinez's version is the original one. “Is Britney Spears’ Toxic a cover?” is a thread I’m not making up. People in Martinez’s concerts are disappointed when she doesn’t sing 'Toxic.' It seems even as her original music continues to top the charts, this is what fans still want to hear the most. So I’m not the only 'Toxic'-head out there, and the validation is golden.
I may have lost almost a decade of the song’s life, but a belated discovery has its rewards. More than what the song is in its form, I saw its very creation as an act of rebellion. In that audition, Martinez did nothing to fit in – the artist and the way she recreated the song felt like a potent anti-pop force, the alter ego that wanted to break free from the original. She took one of the most recognisable tunes of pop, and gave it a new life that has now outlasted its parent.
Perhaps 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate this off-kilter musical expression the way I do now. Martinez’s 'Toxic' became the cover that launched a thousand covers, and changed my playlist forever. I recently found a one-hour-10-minute on loop version on YouTube – I predict many more missed stops during commute.
Britney Spears has left the chat.
Read more from the Pleasure Without Guilt series here.
Kusumita Das is a freelance journalist from India currently living in Jerusalem. She writes on cinema, culture and travel, and in her free time tries to string together sentences in Hebrew.
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