The record saw the contribution of the group's previous collaborator Hitchhiker, who produced the tracks "Telepathy" and "Sunflower".

The album was released on October 19, 2011, by SM Entertainment, and was distributed in South Korea by KMP Holdings.

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.

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.

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.

Later on October 13, 2011, SM Entertainment released 16-second teaser clips for both the Korean and English versions of "The Boys".

A Japanese version of "The Boys" was produced for the repackaged album of Girls' Generation, released on December 28, 2011.

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.

[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.

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.