Britney Spears’ ‘Toxic’ Without Autotune Leaked, Here’s How Her Real Voice Sounds

Britney Spears is already considered a legend in the pop music scene. But even after selling millions of records worldwide and being considered one of the best-selling artists of all time, many people still don’t believe in her singing talent. However, fans and non-fans alike are now talking about Britney Spears, particularly about her 2003 hit, “Toxic,” an unenhanced version of which has been uploaded on YouTube this week.

It remains to be seen where the leak came from, but none of that mattered as people are more focused on one thing: that the track features no voice enhancement or editing to the recording so people would only hear Spears’ raw voice.

Britney Spears’ songs have been mostly enhanced to make it sound more appealing. She’s even done more lip-syncing during her live concerts. Hearing a version of “Toxic” without all those enhancements is a rare thing to come by.

Anyone who’s in doubt over her musical skill would now be convinced that the 35-year-old singer can actually sing. Spears has been in the entertainment industry for decades. She made quite an entrance to the music scene with “Baby One More Time” from 1998. Spears’ voice may not be incredible (she’d been pitted against Christina Aguilera with her high-range vocals), but this new “Toxic” version without the autotune earned Britney praises.

Her voice is not comparable to classic legends like Bette Midler or Whitney Houston, but people acknowledge that Britney has it in her after all. For die-hard fans, though, Britney doesn’t have to prove anything because they know that she can sing despite being well-known for her lip-sync slip-ups.

Britney’s lip-syncing fails are not surprising as they have happened several times during her live concerts. During an important moment in her career — her comeback to the Video Music Awards in August 2016 — Spears performed her song “Make Me” from her album Glory. She immediately faced criticism for lip syncing on stage and doing it badly.

Her most recent lip syncing fail happened in Tokyo over the weekend while performing the hit “I’m A Slave 4 U.” Spears had her face covered with a mask as part of the performance. A wireless microphone was also attached to her head. In the middle of the song, she ripped off her mask with the microphone tagging along. Spears stopped opening her mouth to fix herself, but all throughout, the song and her vocals kept playing.

But while Britney Spears’ is being criticized for her lip syncing, not many people realize that she can sing live. Before she started her residency in Las Vegas in 2013, she told reporters that she wanted to sing live, Refinery 29 reported. Once the show was ongoing, one of the members of Spears’ management team, Adam Leber, revealed that it’s almost impossible for her to do that.

“To put on the show that she puts on, it’s virtually impossible to sing the entire time and do what she does,” Leber told Medium in 2014.

“She’s singing on every song, basically, when she has the ability to sing. There’s no way you can dance for 90 minutes straight and sing the entire time.”

There’s also a compilation of Britney Spears singing live, starting from when “Baby One More Time” was a huge hit. It only shows how Britney has been singing live early on in her career.

Britney Spears is currently in Asia for her Glory album tour before going back to her Las Vegas show. She is also set to leave her residency by the end of this year. Spears’ publicist, Jeff Raymond, confirmed the final run of her “Piece of Me” show at the Axis on December 31. But that doesn’t mean that the fun ends for Britney fans as manager Larry Rudolph told the Las Vegas Review-Journal about the possible shows that could happen in the future.

“We are done with this show, and our next move is undecided. We are still talking with Caesars Entertainment and other interested parties in Las Vegas. Anything is possible. We have made zero decisions.”

Meanwhile, check out the unearthed version of “Toxic” without autotuning.

[Featured Image by Mike Windle/Getty Images]