Actors - Toxic

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	Actors - Toxic

"Toxic" is the second single from the album In the Zone
by Pop singer Britney Spears, released during the first quarter of 2004.

The Bloodshy and Avant-produced "Toxic", which has been described as a pop song crossed with a James Bond theme song, boasts both Bollywood strings and slick production, with writing credits from Cathy Dennis and others. The song is about being addicted to a man's kiss, which Spears simply describes as being "toxic".

The single was a major international success. It has been covered by The Pulsar Triyo, Local H, and Nickel Creek.

Chart performance

"Toxic" became Spears' biggest U.S. hit since "...Baby One More Time", and her first top-ten single on the Billboard Hot 100 since 2000's "Oops!... I Did It Again". For these reasons, the song is considered by some critics to have been her first comeback single.

Although radio has never really warmed to Spears' music, "Toxic" did reach #10 on the Hot 100 Airplay. The single also experienced strong downloads, and became her first number one on the Hot Digital Tracks (it was the 4th most legally downloaded song of 2004); however, these downloads did not help the song on the charts, as digital sales did not begin counting towards chart positions until early 2005, and likely would have been a #1 single if other wise. The single was also ranked at forty-eight on the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End chart for 2004.

On Top 40 radio, the song reached number one for four weeks on the Mainstream Top 40 and number two on the Top 40 Tracks. "Toxic" also reached the top twenty on the Rhythmic Top 40.

"Toxic" became one of the biggest worldwide hits of 2004, and reached the top five or number one in nearly every country it charted in.

The single also became a huge success in the U.K. selling 102,000 copies in it's first week of release and debuting at number-one. "Toxic" sold a total of 268,000 copies and became the 9th best selling single of 2004.

Music video

The Joseph Kahn-directed music video for "Toxic" ranks with "I'm a Slave 4 U" as Britney's most risqué. The video was even banned from MTV for a short period of time (though it was still capable of retiring on TRL).

The video begins with a scene of several birds following a futuristic aeroplane in the sky. The camera moves for shots inside the aircraft and reveals Spears to be a flight attendant. She answers a phone call, dances provocatively with her trolley and spills wine on a man's trousers (and then proceeds to clean up her mess), before moving on to an overweight man standing in the path eating a sandwich; she then abandons her trolley to push him into the facilities, and locks the door with both of them inside. The two begin kissing, in which Spears pulls the face of the man off, revealing a supermodel's face beneath. They continue making out, and while the man is distracted from their actions, Spears steals a key from him.

Spears is on the streets of Paris in the next part of the video, wearing a dominatrix suit, sporting wavy red hair, waiting to be picked up. Her transport (shirtless supermodel Tyson Beckford who is riding a red motorcycle) arrives, and the pair drive off to Spears' destination, a factory owned by "Toxic Industries Inc". She uses the key she stole from the man on the airplane to enter a room that contains toxin. Spears then exits the building, but not before having to pass through a series of security measures, including eruptions of fire and rotating glass wheels.

Following the adventure, Spears climbs up the wall of a building. Now adorned in a type of superhero costume with black hair, she enters the apartment of her former lover. They begin to make out, but for Spears, this is only a distraction so that she can use the toxin she stole to murder the man. She plants a kiss on his face, and then jumps off the edge of the building, and lands in the airplane that the video originally began in. The video closes as it began, with birds flying behind the aircraft.

Awards

"Toxic" earned a number of award nominations and wins. Predictably, with its popular video, it became one of the most-nominated works at the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards. It also became Spears' first to be nominated in the category for Video of the Year; she was the only female nominated in the category for that year's ceremony. Strangely, however, she still lost to Beyoncé's "Naughty Girl" in the category of Best Female Video, leading to speculation that the awards were fixed.

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