The Boys is the third Koreanstudio album and the fourth overall by South Korean girl group Girls' Generation. The record saw the contribution of the group's previous collaborator Hitchhiker, who produced the tracks "Telepathy" and "Sunflower". The title track, "The Boys", was a result of experimenting with new producers, including American Grammy Award-winning producer Teddy Riley. Musically, The Boys mostly contains uptempodance tracks and occasionally empowerment ballads.
The album was released on October 19, 2011, by SM Entertainment, and was distributed in South Korea by KMP Holdings. An alternate version titled Mr. Taxi featured a Korean-language version of the group's 2011 Japanese-language single "Mr. Taxi", and an English-language version of "The Boys" was released on December 9, 2011. An international version featuring the English-language version of "The Boys" was released in January 2012 by Interscope and Polydor Records, in order to expand the group's endeavor to the global music scene. To promote the record for international audiences, the group appeared on television shows in the United States and France.
Upon its release, The Boys received generally positive reviews from music critics. Commercially, the album was a success in the group's native country South Korea, peaking atop the Gaon Album Chart and was the best-selling album of 2011 in the country. The title track won the Digital Daesang at the 26th Golden Disc Awards. It also achieved success in other Asian countries, including Japan (reaching number 2 on the Oricon Albums Chart) and Taiwan (reaching number 3 on the G-Music chart). The record additionally charted at numbers 64 and 130 in Spain and France, respectively. In the United States, The Boys reached number 2 on the World Albums and number 17 on the Top Heatseekers.
In August 2011, SM Entertainment confirmed that the group will be back in September with their third full-length album, but the release date was eventually delayed to October due to Sooyoung’s unexpected car accident injury.
On September 26, 2011, the first teaser photo featuring Taeyeon was released online for the impending comeback for "The Boys", followed by Sunny and Hyoyeon on September 27, Jessica, Sooyoung, and Tiffany on September 28, and Yoona, Yuri, and Seohyun on September 29. The girls all represented a fairytale theme, with Taeyeon as Snow White, Sunny as Little Red Riding Hood, Hyoyeon as Thumbelina, Jessica as Elisa, Sooyoung as Rapunzel, Tiffany as Ariel, Yoona as Milady de Winter, Yuri as Karen, and Seohyun as The Snow Queen. On September 30, 2011, SM Entertainment announced that the album would be indefinitely postponed due to ongoing discussions about an album release in the United States, with details to be released as soon as they were confirmed.[6]
On October 1, 2011, SM released the first teaser for "The Boys", followed by the second teaser on October 7, 2011. Both teasers showed Yoona picking up a black crystal, and proceeds to show the rest of the members in an outside, misty atmosphere. Later on October 13, 2011, SM Entertainment released 16-second teaser clips for both the Korean and English versions of "The Boys". The teaser depicts the girls rapping and chanting along to the song. On the same day, SM released 30-second teaser clips of "The Boys", which showed a longer version of the previous teaser videos.
The album was officially released on October 19, 2011, and the group's comeback performances commenced on October 21 starting with Music Bank. It was confirmed on November 27 that an alternate version of the album will be out on December 8. The Korean version of "Mr. Taxi" was promoted as the second single from the album and the main promotional single off the alternate version of the album.
A Japanese version of "The Boys" was produced for the repackaged album of Girls' Generation, released on December 28, 2011. It included the song "Time Machine", for which an MV was revealed on March 13, 2012.[7][unreliable source] However, it was never officially promoted on Japanese TV broadcasts. On December 19, 2011, Girls' Generation performed the Japanese version of "The Boys" live on the Japanese TV reality show, Hey! Hey! Hey! Music Champ.
"The Boys" was announced for an American release on November 19, 2011, under their American label Interscope Records, but after postponement, the single was released digitally on December 20 instead. SM Entertainment confirmed that the girls would promote their debut US single, "The Boys" on the late-night talk show the Late Show with David Letterman and on syndicateddaytime talk show Live! with Kelly on January 31 and February 1 respectively.
The Boys was released in the US on January 17, 2012. This marks Girls' Generation's first physical release in the country, using the Korean single cover of the title track as the American album cover. Except for the English version of the title track, the entire album consists of Korean-language songs, all of which were taken from the original edition of The Boys. Four remixes of the English version of "The Boys" are also included in the US edition, the first of which features American rapper Snoop Dogg.
"The Boys" was released worldwide via iTunes on October 19, 2011.[citation needed] In an interview with MTV K, members Jessica and Tiffany mentioned that the recording of both English and Korean versions took a week to finish. The song marked the first time a Girls' Generation member had written a single for the group, with Tiffany writing the English rap and final chorus of the song. In the US, the single failed to enter the US Billboard Hot 100 but entered the Top 100 on the iTunes 200 Top Songs, and later reached the Top 30 for a moment on its first day of release. It dropped off the chart three days later; despite this, the song managed to sell over 21,000 copies.[8] However, the Korean Version debuted at number 1 on the Billboard's K-pop Hot 100. The Korean version of "Mr. Taxi" was the album's second single to promote an alternate version of the album.
The Boys was commercially successful in Asian regions. It debuted at number 1 on South Korea's Gaon Weekly Albums chart and sold over 460,000 copies in South Korea alone, which made it the best selling girl group album of the 2010s decade in the country. The album also peaked at number 2 on the Oricon Weekly Albums Chart, the standard album chart of Japan, with sales records of more than 100,000 copies in the country. In addition, the album sold 26,000 copies in Taiwan. The album charted both in Spain and France at position number 64 and number 130 respectively for one week. A total of ten songs charted within the top ten on the Gaon Chart, including "Telepathy", "Top Secret", "Vitamin", "How Great Is Your Love", and "Mr. Taxi". The US edition of The Boys has not replicated the same commercial performance as it did in its native country; the album failed to enter the Billboard 200,[13] but debuted at number 2 on the Billboard World Albums[14] and re-entered the Heatseekers Album Chart at number 17.[14]
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