This Day in Pop: single 'Boys (Co-Ed Remix)' ft. Pharrell Williams is released in 2002 (July 29)

[PokemonSpears]

 

 

On July 29, 2002, Britney Spears released Boys as the sixth and last single off her album Britney. The single was different from the album version though, it was the Co-Ed Remix, which featured Pharrell Williams from N.E.R.D (who was also co-producer of the song). This version was also featured on the soundtrack of the movie Austin Powers in Goldmember, along with Beyoncé's debut solo single Work It Out. 

The music video for the song was actually released the month prior, on June 17 

It was directed by Dave Meyers who had worked with her on the Lucky video in 2000, and who she would work again with on the scrapped Outrageous and Radar in 2009. The video has cameo appearances from Mike Myers as Austin Powers, as well as DJ Qualls, Jason Priestley, Justin Bruening and Taye Diggs. It was nominated at the VMAS 2003 for Best Video from a Film, losing to Eminem's Lose Yourself. It also landed at #18 on the annual Top 100 that MTV Latin America used to do, in 2002. 

 

Britney Spears has performed the song in almost all of her tours ever since it came out (only absent on The M+M's Tour) and it was even part of the promotion of the In the Zone album in 2003, as part of a medley with I'm a Slave 4 U. Sometimes it's been the album version, other times the Co-Ed Remix, a mixture of the two, or a remix of either version.