Modern Times by IU

Modern Times is the third Korean-language studio album by South Korean singer-songwriter IU. It was released on October 8, 2013 by LOEN Entertainment under its imprint LOEN Tree. Under the theme of "French Black", the album departs from the singer's girlish image which established her as the "Nation's Sweetheart", by attempting various styles of music such as swing, jazz, and bossa nova. This is her first full-length release since Last Fantasy (2011). For her brand-new record, IU collaborated with singer-songwriters Choi Baek-ho and Yang Hee-eun. Gain from Brown Eyed Girls, Jonghyun from Shinee, and jazz guitarist Bak Ju-won also participated on the album as featured artists.Modern Times contains thirteen tracks in total such as the singer's number-one hit "The Red Shoes" and her self-composed song "Bad Day". It also features the Korean version of "Voice Mail" from IU's Japanese extended play Can You Hear Me? (2013) as a bonus track. The album was re-released as Modern Times - Epilogue on December 20, 2013 and contained the title track "Friday" as well as "Pastel Crayon" from KBS's romantic comedy television series Bel Ami where the singer starred as a lead role, Kim Bo-tong. The repackaged album had two DVDs and was limited to 10,000 copies.The album earned IU the Melon Music Award for Top 10 Artists (2013), and the Mnet Asian Music Award for Best Female Artist (2014). Its commercial success showed that IU still had her strong popularity; There was about three million copies of digital downloads sold in its initial week of release. As of November 2019, the album has sold more than 60,000 physical copies and eight million digital singles in her native country (see Chart performance). Modern Times was successful internationally as well boasting positive digital sales.