This Max Martin and Shellback produced dark, downbeat tune finds Britney begging her mom to understand why she's in love with a shady character. "Mama I'm in love with a criminal and this kind of love isn't rational, it's physical," she sings. The subject matter is similar to another disapproving parent-tune, Madonna's "Papa Don't Preach."
Britney polled her fans on her official Facebook page, asking them to vote for the fourth official single from Femme Fatale. This song won the poll with 39,160 votes, beating the other choices of "(Drop Dead) Beautiful" and "Inside Out". Britney confirmed on August 28, 2011, at the MTV Video Music Awards, this song's release as a single. "I don't know if I'm at liberty to tell. But I will anyways – it's Criminal," she said, then added: "Actually the song, when I first heard it, [I thought] 'It's really different and [there's] not anything I've heard like this before'. So I really wanted to deliver this song."
The video was shot in the Stoke Newington district of London, on the weekend of September 17, 2011. It was directed by Chris Marrs Piliero, who was also responsible for the clip for Spears' previous single for "I Wanna Go." Britney's co-star in the Bonnie and Clyde themed visual is her boyfriend, her former agent Jason Trawick.
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