The love for music is something that all college students share, regardless of major, personality or any social affiliation. But music is a pretty broad topic, so different people like a variety of music: some may be into rock or metal, while others may be into pop or rap. Nevertheless, there are a very few select songs that are able to transcend the great divide of music genres. An example of a song that does just that is “Toxic,” by Britney Spears, whether people like to admit it or not. I am one of those people who does like to admit it-I love this song! I even made the hook from this song my tone every time I get a text message, which gets some surprised faces when I forget to put my phone on sounds off during class. It may be 
a little embarrassing sometimes, but it’s totally worth it, especially when I hear people saying “that’s awesome” upon hearing my text tone. Some people that I’ve talked to actually prefer Britney’s other popular songs over “Toxic,” like “Baby One More Time,” or even “Oops I Did it Again,” but those have been fellow Britney fans. What makes “Toxic” so unusual is that a person could just dislike Britney Spears, but still like the song itself; of course I have also talked to people who liked “Toxic” but didn’t even know it’s by Britney Spears. Back around the time when this song was released, it played on the radio quite often. But one time, after the song played, the person working the radio (I think it might’ve been Z100, but I don’t exactly remember which one) said “because I love this song so much, I’m gonna play it again!” This song played two times in a row on a single radio station! I have never heard of that happening before, and I have yet to experience that happening again with any other song!
Because I was so convinced that the song “Toxic” is very toxic, I decided to ask around at Rutgers. I would play my text tone for a person, the two-second hook, and ask if he or she knew where that was from. Then, if the answer was yes, I would ask if they liked the song or not. Of course, everyone has their very own slightly different definition of “like,” but there isn’t really a way to get around that even if I explained what I meant by that, so I just accepted the fact and moved on. From the people I asked, only about 15% of them did not know where song the 2-second bit came from. And out of the ones who did know, about 82% said that they liked the song. That’s easily an A in most curved classes here at Rutgers! To be honest though, I expected it to be higher than 80-something, but I guess that data doesn’t lie. I’m pretty sure some guys just didn’t want to admit to liking it, but maybe that’s just me telling myself that to feel better. All in all, 82% is still a large majority, and it shows that “Toxic” is truly a song that everyone can enjoy!
Boris Klimushkin