How Bollywood gave Britney Spears its greatest success

• We dissect the cinematic influences behind "Toxic", the 2003 hit by Britney Spears which remains both critical and fan favorite more than fifteen years after its release.
• The high strings of the famous hook for "Toxic" were actually sampled in the 80s Bollywood musical, "Ek Duuje Ke Liye."
• The refrain of "Toxic" is musically inspired by Bond's first film, in particular its iconic 007 theme song – which, it turns out, was born from Indian music.
• Insider spoke with classical carnival singer Manasi Prasad and classical-trained composer Adam Ragusea to find out why the sounds of Bollywood and James Bond have such an affinity for each other in " Toxic ".
• Visit the Insider home page for more stories.

Here is a transcript of the video.

– ♪ Baby, can't you see ♪

Meredith Geaghan-Breiner: Rewind in 2003. Britney Spears hasn't had great success in almost four years, and critics say her career is falling apart. All of that would change when she abandoned 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 musical from Bollywood. These high strings in the score? You've heard them before, when Toxic opened, and repeated throughout the song. It is this musical number, "Tere Mere Beech Mein", which is the source of the unmistakable hook and riff of "Toxic" and much of the intensity of the song.

Manasi Prasad: "Tere Mere Beech Mein", this is a classic film called "Ek Duuje Ke Liye".

Meredith Geaghan-Breiner: Meet Manasi Prasad, a classical carnatic singer with an encyclopedic knowledge of Indian music.

Manasi Prasad: This song is actually based on a classic Indian rāga, or melody. It is ♪ La la la ♪ ♪ La la la la la la ♪ ♪ La la ♪ So you will find many other Indian songs that are in this rāga. It is used to transmit 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 intensity and brightness.

Meredith Geaghan-Breiner: Britney's songwriter team, led by successful creator Cathy Dennis, took two tiny sections of the music number and expertly merged those two sections.

["Tere Mere Beech Mein"] ["Tere Mere Beech Mein"] ["Toxic"]

Adam Ragusea: There is a chain hook which has the low and fast part, which is the ♪ Bum bum ba da da da dum ba da da dum ♪ and then there is a very high part which goes ♪ Da da ba ♪

Meredith Geaghan-Breiner: These are Adam Ragusea, a writer and YouTuber who is also a classically trained composer. This second part of the hook that Adam just sang? It starts on a very high F, a note which is well outside the key of C minor of the song, which makes the whole disorienting.

Adam Ragusea: This glaring F-sharp note makes it all cinematic and scary in a fun way, like an action movie.

Meredith Geaghan-Breiner: There is certainly something that seems dangerous in this sample of strings. It has a lot to do with the film from which it was made, a forbidden romance story.

Manasi Prasad: It was a story of these crossed lovers. They fell in love, and their families objected, so the two ended up dying at the end of the film. It is therefore a kind of truly tragic and intense love story.

Meredith Geaghan-Breiner: In the film, love is a danger, and this is reflected in the music, especially in the glissandos, these sliding figures in the strings, which are roughly the signature of the sampled hook of "Toxic". They seem slippery and insecure, which has corresponded since Britney's song on sliding and falling.

♪ It's dangerous ♪ ♪ I'm falling ♪

Meredith Geaghan-Breiner: In a way, these notes sound even more treacherous when the sample is played backwards halfway on the track. Beyond the garish orchestral parts borrowed from Bollywood, the other great source of danger in "Toxic" comes from the buzzing and sinister 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 are toxic ♪

Meredith Geaghan-Breiner: If this piece of guitar sounds a bit old-school to you, it's because it's surfing, a rock sub-genre that was most important in the late 1950s and early 1960s. , when there was a boom of interest in the culture of the west coast waves.

Clip: Surf! [surf guitar]

Meredith Geaghan-Breiner: The surf guitar is played in a way that evokes the sounds and feel of surfing with a hard and fast picking style and a strong, wet reverb.

♪ Never been ♪

Meredith Geaghan-Breiner: If surfing is supposed to capture the carefree Californian ethos, you may be wondering why the guitar in "Toxic" has the opposite feel. This low, low guitar sound sounds suspenseful in a way that matches the adrenaline rush of Bollywood strings. It's probably because you identify this twangy guitar with something else, one of the most recognizable movie themes in the world.

["James Bond theme"]

Meredith Geaghan-Breiner: Bond's very first film, "Dr. No", was released in 1962 at the height of surf rock. So it's no surprise that her title song, which would set the model for all subsequent Bond themes, was fueled by surfing. The 007 theme had an immeasurable influence on the music of all of the Cold War spy films and television series that followed it.

["Secret Agent Man"]

♪ There is a man who leads a life of danger ♪

Meredith Geaghan-Breiner: Right now, the guitar tone you hear in "Toxic" has big spy overtones, and the Bond-inspired clip for the song seems to be a nod to this connection. . OK, so we have the aggressive twang of the surf guitar evoking the reckless audacity of a special agent and the bollywood strings frantically sliding capturing the rush of a risky love story. How is it that these two disparate sounds on opposite sides of the globe seem to have such an affinity for each other? It turns out, they share some of the same musical DNA. Monty Norman, the film's composer who wrote the theme 007, drew his melody from a previous play he had written for an adaptation of the play "A House for Mr. Biswas", the novel by VS Naipaul on Indian immigrants. Basically, the sound that defines spy music was actually born from Indian music.

Adam Ragusea: And so, when we hear these two aesthetics united in "Toxic", it seems really natural to us.

Meredith Geaghan-Breiner: "Toxic" distills some of the most exciting sounds from world cinema into a three-minute pop masterpiece. What other club banger combines Bond and Bollywood so perfectly and remains a DJ must-see 15 years later? This is why "Toxic" is not only the greatest triumph in Britney's career, but one of the most impressive pop hits of our time.

♪ With the taste of your lips ♪

♪ I'm on a ride ♪ ♪ You're toxic ♪

♪ I slide under ♪

♪ With the taste of a poisoned paradise ♪

♪ I'm addicted to you ♪

♪ don't you know you're toxic ♪