When your eyes say it was written by Diane Warren who is known for her brilliant ballads from Celine Dion to Whitney Houston to Cher.
The song was only released in in an unofficial single format in Asia – just before the official release was pulled off the shelves. It is widely rumoured that the ‘When Your Eyes Say It’ was due to be a single instead of ‘Don’t Let Me Be The Last To Know’, however they decided against it and to push it back as a fifth single. This idea was later completely scrapped due to the lower than usual sales performance of the fourth single and also the release of Britney’s ‘I’m A Slave 4 U’ off her third album instead.
There is a very popular rumour that a video was shot for the (now scrapped) single. The video was supposedly shot in January 2001 by directors Jonathan Sayton and Valerie Faris, best known for their music videos for alternative and rock groups. This was just recently dismissed by a spokesperson for Dayton and Faris – on Twitter – however no one knows if this is just for placing the video rumours to rest, or if in fact no video actually exists. Either way, it looks like we will never know for sure.
Let the nostalgia kick in and watch this impressive fan made video:
Toxic was written by Cathy Dennis from D-Mob, who also wrote Kylie Minogue’s, ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’. Toxic was originally intended for Kylie Minogue, however she rejected it and Britney took on the song.
The music video was released the same time as Janet Jackson’s infamous Superbowl ‘boob flash’ – which lead to an uproar over ‘indecent material’ being shown on prime time telly. This forced MTV to move Toxic and other raunchy videos to the late slot viewings. Britney’s flesh coloured body suit was considered too risky.
Toxic, a Bloodshy and Advant production, earned Britney her first ever Grammy. B&A are also responsible for the massive hit ‘Piece Of Me’ which is used as the headline title of Britney’s highly successful Vegas residency. NME, Rolling Stones and The Telegraph have all named ‘Toxic’ one of the greatest songs of all time.
There has been numerous cover versions of Britney’s Toxic , including Mark Ronson, Yael Naim and many others. The video is also regarded one of the greatest videos of all time – and has been referenced in many other artists videos, a famous one in particular being Taylor Swift’s ‘Bad Blood’ – which coincidentally is directed by the same director, Joseph Khan.
The video, Britney appears to be a flight attendant, but it turns out she is a secret agent in disguise. Joseph Khan called the video pretty ‘nonsensical… it’s just fun…like James Bond flicks and sex’
Rumour has it that the video costed more than $1m dollars to make and is considered one of the most expensive music videos of all time.
The body Jewels were hand glued on and took 9 hours to make.
Only the director and the visual effects guy were allowed on set during the diamonds scene..
The 2 girls touching just before the bike scene was originally cut from the US for being too racy.
The passenger that Britney spills her drink on – is in fact Joseph Khan’s long term casting director and the ‘ugly’ guy is the casting director’s assistant, who also appears in the ‘Womanizer’ video.
Britney’s ‘boyfriend is played by Martin Henderson, who also plays in Joseph Khan’s directorial debut ‘Torque’
The choreography was planned by Brian Freedman and Britney, each scene had a very strict structured routine.
The original rumour was that Tim Burton was due to direct the music video and follow a Circus theme. This was later proven to be false..
Jay – Z confirmed in a Twitter Q&A that ‘Toxic’ was his fave Britney song. ‘’Jamming my G’’ he remarked. Britney responded with, ‘’You learn something new everyday. Never knew that @S_C_ was a fan of Toxic, that’s Big Pimpin’’
Many people mistake the girl in the shower for Britney, however it is not. It is in fact the ‘love interest’ of Britney’s boyfriend – hence the revenge..
Tyson Beckord celebrated his birthday on the day of shooting the motorbike scenes.
Joseph Khan stated that the entire video was Britney’s idea, with tweaks from him. Joseph Khan is also responsible for some of Britney’s most iconic video’s including, ‘Stronger’ and ‘Womanizer’
Toxic received the MTV – Making The Video treatment, if you have not yet seen it, what are you waiting for?
Here is a clip of Toxic uncut – as it appears on her My Prerogative DVD.
Celebrate the birth of ‘Toxic’ by watching the iconic VEVO certified video here.
…Baby One More Time was supposed to be a self-titled album, with an alternative cover art (Asian release cover), this was confirmed in a promotional poster back in 1998. This can also be seen on the single release below:
The lead single was meant to be a single for TLC – for their album ‘Fan Mail’, however the band rejected it, stating it was not their style and that they did not like the lyrics, it was not something they believed in. TLC ‘Fan Mail’ went on to sell 6 million copies, whilst ‘…Baby One More Time’ went on to sell over 30 million….
Oops…
When TLC rejected the track, Max Martin then decided to offer the track to a boy band, he initially had 5ive in mind and then considered the Backstreet Boys, finally the decision was made to offer it to Britney and the rest is history.
For the lead single, the original video idea was for Britney to release it as a cartoon character, but Britney refused and wanted to go for the catholic school girl look instead. Britney said: ‘I was freaking out. They were like, really set on it. They were gonna do it. I was like, ‘Y’all, Please. I do not want to be some Power Ranger and have my watch come out and kill somebody.’ So I told them my idea.’
The lead single video remains one of the most iconic music videos of all time due to Britney’s idea and contributed massively to cementing her name in the pop industry. The video was named the most iconic video of all time by TRL. Take that Jive..
Although this school girl look…
..is arguably the most iconic Britney look of all time, strangely if you Google search Britney Impersonators, none of the looks are from this video.
The Ellipsis at the beginning of the title refer to the fact that ‘Hit Me’ was removed from the original title due to concerns that it would be seen to condone domestic violence, even though the term ‘Hit Me’ refers to the slang term ‘Hit me up’ meaning give me a call.
The lead single reached number 1 on every chart on which it appeared. Wikipedia’s entry for the song is a long string of number 1’s. No other song, not even Celine Dion’s –‘My Heart Will Go On’ or Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’ Can claim this feat.
If you play ‘..Baby One More Time’ backwards – you can apparently hear Britney sing, ‘Sleep with me, I’m not too young’ according to weird pervs who spend their time playing music backwards..
We personally feel it’s doctored….
‘The Call’’ by the Backstreet Boys apparently uses the same chord structure, though when played at the same time, BOMT is by far the better track.
Britney signed a deal with Jive when she blew everyone away with her rendition of Whitney Houston’s ‘I Have Nothing’ and thus the ‘…Baby One More Time’ album was born.
Britney knew BOMT was going to be a hit. ‘I had been in the studio for about six months listening to and recording material, but I hadn’t really heard a hit yet. When I started working with Max Martin in Sweden he played the demo for ‘…Baby One More Time’ for me and I knew from the start it was one of those songs you want to hear again and again. It Just felt really right.
BOMT is the album with the most alternative covers in Britney’s career. There is one box cover and 11 official different album covers.
Max Martin worked on Britney’s debut album more than what was initially intended. The producer was only due to work on 2 tracks for the album, but ended up submitting eight, three of which made the album track list and 2 of those became singles (BOMT and (You Drive Me) Crazy).
Britney sings Baby 25 times in the song (BOMT) in case you were wondering…
‘…Baby One More Time’ lost to Sarah McLauglan’s song at the Grammy’s long before Esparanza Spalding angered the Belieber’s at The Grammy’s. The album, although being one of the most iconic albums of all time, left with no Grammy’s, proving the Grammy’s make plenty of mistakes…
…BIG MISTAKES..
BOMT is still Britney’s biggest hit, it spent a whopping 32 weeks on the Tally and is Britney’s longest charting single. Although it debuted at number 17 on the Hot 100 on the chart dated 21 November 1998 – the song hit number 1 on it’s 11th week in January 1999.
In the ‘If You Seek Amy’ video in 2009 – Britney offers a shout out to her iconic video – by dressing up her pretend daughter in the catholic school girl outfit, pink pig tails included…
The album went on to become the best selling album by a teenage solo artist of all time with over 30 million copies!!
Britney was initially focused on becoming a ‘Sheryl Crow’ style singer. She wanted the album to be ‘young adult contemporary rock’. The label had other plans.. and we cannot say that we are sad about it…
The choice to change the European cover of the ‘…Baby One More Time’ album was due to the US version not being considered chaste and at the time of launching – the idea was to ensure Britney was presented as a chaste and virgin girl.
There were also 2 different album poster inserts – one is the standard (shown above) and the other is the following:
The choice to release ‘(Your Drive Me) Crazy’ as a single was improvised, in fact no advertising poster advertised it, but with the release of the movie, ‘Drive Me Crazy’ there was a promotional request to release it as a single. So Jive remixed it to make it more commercial sounding, hence the different album version.
‘Email My Heart’ was in fact considered as an American only release single instead, but was changed due to the reasons above. Eric Foster White who wrote the song, got the inspiration for the song after teaching Felicia how to email her boyfriend…
When Britney and Felicia went to New Jersey to work with Eric Foster White he taught her how to play darts. This is where he got the inspiration for the line in ‘From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart’ which is ‘… a dart through my dreams through my heart’.
‘Soda Pop’ was used as a promotional single for the soundtrack of the debut of ‘Pokemon:The Movie’. In fact there is a promotional single included in the series of dolls related to Britney in 2000.
The lyrics to ‘Born To Make You Happy’ had to be rewritten in many parts as Britney did not feel comfortable with a few verses that had overly sexual explicit verses. The lyrics were modified and then adapted by the authors.
The Bonus remix on the single, was rumoured to have been the original version of the song.If you have not heard it yet, it is an absolute must…
The bonus track ‘You Got It All’ is in fact a cover of an old song from ‘the Jetts’. The title was shortened from the original which was, ‘you Got It All Over Him’. The song is not widely known, even though it was originally intended to make the album. Only a short clip was available at first on the promotional tapes for the album with some other album tracks back in 1999.
‘Thinking about you’ was also considered as a third single (EU) after ‘Sometimes’, just like the US plans for ‘Email My Heart’, this fell through, due to the release of (You Drive Me) Crazy.
The ‘Sometimes’ original album version was replaced by the single version, it had a guitar intro and a different sounding outro. This version can only be found on the original pressings of ‘…Baby One More Time’ and the album sampler.
The version can also be heard in the live performance here:
There are 7 different coloured discs and flowers for the CD itself.
The singles also have different album covers, ‘BOMT’ has 4, ‘Sometimes’ also has 4 and ‘From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart’ has 2.
The first pressing of the album has ‘The Beat Goes On’ (Originally a Cher track) at 5:52 – as there is a hidden message from Britney promoting the then new Backstreet Boys album. The rest of the pressings have song at 3:43.
The release of Britney’s ‘Sometimes’ music video had to be delayed due to a leg injury, this is why you would see a massive gap between single releases.
Britney’s ‘…Baby One More Time’ has outsold all albums combined of Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Rihanna… Just to use one artist as an example to showcase the impact…
You can find out more about the ALBUM, MUSIC VIDEOS and TOURS from this era by clicking the links.
We are dedicating this week to streaming the album, join us in getting a 17 year album back in the charts! To stream the album on Spotify please click HERE
To buy the album and fall in love with it all over again click HERE.
Although the ‘…Baby One More Time’ video is already certified, her other iconic videos are not, why not give them some love by clicking on the links below:
