Let me preface this by saying I can't stand Britney and don't listen to her music. But my honey likes her and played me the video.

As soon as I heard it, I was like "that little high pitched synth riff is a rip off of Prince's Automatic". I'm not saying the whole song, or groove is the same. Just that little keyboard riff. It's like a high pitch..analog string sound or something. It may not even be the exact same notes... but does noone hear the similarity of that riff and the one in "Automatic?"

GaryMF said:

I don't.

EverlastingNow said:

that high pitched ochestrated synth..yeah i know what u mean.

I see what you're saying, but Prince didn't invent the synthesizer. It's not a crime.

I know he didn't invent the synth... the riff just sounds very simialr. I'm not saying it's illegal. It just struck me the moment I heard it. And I dont' even love hte song "Automatic".

I figured people are even more familiar with P's catalog than I would have noticed it too.

The rhythm and feel of the riff, as well as the synth sound. sound very similar.

Didnt' one of her older songs ("Slave") borrow from a Vanity 6 song too?

paisleypark4 said:

I hear the pitch, but not so much the riff I guess.

I was in another room while this was playing on MTv and thought that it was AUTOMATIC 4 sure...Didn't The Neptunes produce this song and Slave? They've said that they are HUGE Prince fans...

Toxic sounds so weird...and yea...there aresimiliarities now that I think on it...

wishuhvn said:

Exactly! When I brought this up before some people were all "Stop tryin' to find Prince in everything!".

And I'm so not like that. In fact, I listened to all of Andre 3000 and I was like "this doesn't sound like Prince".

So I'm glad someone else caught this too. It's just that one snipped that is common to both songs anyway, nothing else.

No that piece of crap does not sound like the sheer brilliance of our hero. You've got bad ears, man.

GaryMF said:

Neptunes didn't produce this.

NWF said:

Well you must have "bad eyes" than ... cuz I never said the song sounds like Prince. I said one specific musical phrase in one song sounds like one specific musical phrase in antoher. That doesn't mean "Toxic" sounds like Prince.

Man!...

GaryMF said:

Well I know what you're talking about, man. And I still stick by my opinion. You're comparing the riff from "Automatic" to "Toxic". I do not think that they sound alike. They may have the same octave but if you listen closely, the notes are different from each other. I don't know if you're musically inclined, but I am, so I know what I'm talking about. And I'm pretty sure whomever wrote "Toxic" was not intent on copying Prince. So I'm pretty sure that if you think they sound the same, then it's just coincidence.


Man.

NWF said:

Yes, I'm "Musically Inclined" as you put it... I play piano/keyboards. I've only heard Toxic like twice... so I dont' know if they are note for note the exactly the same, but they are pretty damn similar phrases... in cadence, lenghth etc... not to mention they are using extremely similar sound patches.

And other people on here have already agreed they thought the same thing.

I dont' really give a shit about Britney. It's just weird to me especially since "Slave" borrowed from Vanity 6 and now this. Whatever.

GaryMF said:

Ok, I just heard it for the first time. All this arguing finally sparked my interest enough to check it out. Yes, That DOES sound like the first few notes of the main line in Automatic. Its probably just a coincidence. Who ever wrote the song (Cathy Dennis?) either didn't realize or didn't care.

These kind of things stick out to certain people, some of us are more sensitive than others. It's like the same notes with a few added in at the end. Like the first 4 notes of the Automatic riff with some extra notes before the 4th note. Kinda like what Vanilla Ice did with those notes from under pressure, although he just added one note and it was just the same note. But anyway, I'm the kinda person, where stuff like that sticks out like a sore thumb. Sure, it's a small part of the song, but I notice stuff like that too. No one is right or wrong, either you hear it or you don't. Maybe later I'll put the notes up, maybe someone already did. I gotta get ready for work now.

Peace.

Thanks Vina Blue! That's all I was trying to say.

Didn't mean to get all "bitchy" so I apologize if it came across that way.

What Vina Blue said is exactly what I meant. I don't even care if it was done on purpose or not... it's just something that my ear picked up and thought was interesting and I figured other Prince fans might have noticed too.

The weird thing is, I never was a huge fan of "Automatic"...in fact when I heard Toxic I had to go back and listen to 1999 cuz I had the musical phrase in my head but i couldn't remember if it was Automatic or one of the other songs on that side.

And along the same lines, I was in a music theory class in college years ago and the instructor was playing some melodies on the piano. She played 5 notes and I was like "Hey! I wrote that last year!" and it was a Debussy tune. So, the songwriter might not even know of the original.

Otan (another orger) once had this cool guitar riff on a song and it sounded like 17 days. Then there is a song by Kylie Minogue (from Fever) and her vocal melody sounds like a Depeche Mode song (from Ultra), while the rest of the song is TOTALLY different. Happens all the time. No big. Some of us are just more sensitive to those kinds of things.

VoicesCarry said:

Nope,1 of my best friends in Sweden did "Toxic"
& why it resembles Automatic´ is probably cuz
that´s his favourite Prince era.Early 80's & The Time
/peace Manki
[This message was edited Sat Jan 31 14:55:27 PST 2004 by manki]

manki said:

Henrik?

WOW! Oh damn, I know you told me this already, but I don't care for Britney so it didn't register when I heard this song finally.


Toxic
Written by C. Dennis/C. Karlsson/P. Winnberg/H. Jonback

Produced and Recorded by Bloodshy & Avant for Murlyn Music AB. Arranged by Bloodshy & Avant and Steve Lunt. Recorded at Murlyn Studios, Stockholm, Sweden and Record Plant, Hollywood, CA. Mixed by Niklas Flyckt at Khabang Studio, Stockholm, Sweden. Assistant Engineers: J.D. Andrew and Jonas Östman. Guitar: Henrik Jonback. Bass: Thomas Lindberg. All other instruments and programming: Bloodshy & Avant. Background Vocals: Britney Spears, Cathy Dennis, Emma Holmgren and BlackCell. 'Bollywood' Strings: Stockholm Session Strings. Strings Arranged and Conducted by Janson & Janson. Digital Editing: Bloodshy & Avant.

manki said:

And I am vindicated.

Thank you Manki!