IU to return to the music world with signature cover album
Singer-actor IU is making a comeback with her third cover album, "Flower Bookmark 3," set for release May 27.
IU's agency Edam Entertainment confirmed that the album continues her signature "Flower Bookmark" cover series nearly eight years after its last installment.
The "Flower Bookmark" albums, which launched in 2014 and continued with a second release in 2017, are known for IU's lyrical interpretations of classic Korean songs. With her delicate emotional delivery and refined vocal tone, she reimagines timeless tracks in a way that both honors the originals and infuses them with her own artistic identity.
The upcoming release not only revives this nostalgic project but also marks her first return to music in about a year and three months, following the release of her sixth EP "The Winning" in February 2024.
The cover image for the new album, which evokes the look of faded film photography, hints at a warm and sentimental atmosphere.
Her previous "Flower Bookmark" albums included reinterpretations of songs such as 'Autumn Morning,' 'The Meaning of You' and 'Sleepless Rainy Night,' all of which earned praise for blending nostalgia with IU's signature sincerity and charm.
It was recently revealed that actor and K-pop star Cha Eun-woo will make a special cameo in IU's new music video.
IU remains one of South Korea's most celebrated solo artists, both as a musician and as an actor. Her world tour "Hereh," held from March to September last year, set a remarkable record as the most-attended world tour by a Korean female soloist, drawing 520,000 fans across Asia, Europe and North America. Most recently, she earned acclaim for her dual role in Netflix's hit series "When Life Gives You Tangerines."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Korea Herald
10 hours ago
- Korea Herald
MMCA admission free for 10 days starting Sept. 1
All exhibitions at the four state-run museum venues offer free admission as part of Korea Art Festival 2025 Kicking off Korea Art Festival 2025, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea is offering free admission from Sept. 1 to 10 at all its venues: Samcheong-dong, Seoul; Deoksugung, Seoul; Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province; and Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province. All museums are closed Mondays except the Samcheong-dong venue, which is open daily. Here is a roundup of upcoming and ongoing shows. For a survey of Korean modern and contemporary art, two exhibitions are currently running at MMCA Seoul and MMCA Gwacheon. While the Seoul exhibition in Samcheong-dong focuses on Korean contemporary art from the 1950s, the Gwacheon venue focuses on how Korean modern art began to flourish since the late 19th century, referring to some pivotal events in the art scene, such as the establishment of the state-run MMCA at the royal palace of Gyeongbokgung in 1969. Located within Deoksugung, a Joseon-period royal palace in the heart of downtown Seoul, MMCA Deoksugung reflects on 80 years of modern Korean history, marking the 80th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japanese colonial rule. The newly opened exhibition takes the theme of 'nostalgia for one's hometown,' which has been a recurring motif in modern Korean literature and art. While admission to the museum is free, admission to the palace costs 1,000 won per person. For those curious about what young Korean artists are creating today, there are two exhibitions worth visiting during the free admission period. "The Korea Artist Prize 2025" will open Aug. 29 at MMCA Seoul, showing works by four finalists: Kim Young-eun, Kim Ji-pyeong, artist collective Unmake Lab and Im Young-zoo. The 'Young Korean Artists 2025: Here and Now' exhibition at MMCA Gwacheon features works by some 20 artists and collectives. The exhibition is one of the oldest programs at the state-run museum and aims to discover and support talented newcomers in the field of art. MMCA Seoul will open the retrospective of Korean art master Kim Tschang-yeul on Aug. 22, shedding light on the legacy of the artist who dedicated his whole life to creating luminous water drops derived from his traumatic experiences from the Korean War (1950-1953) in his early 20s. If you are a fan of media art, the exhibition "Agarmon Encyclopedia: Leaked Edition,' also at MMCA Seoul, is an intriguing one. In this year's edition of the MMCA×LG OLED Series, the young media artist Tzusoo questions the meaning of existence through media art and installation of a mysterious translucent object called 'Agarmon 5.' MMCA Cheongju in North Chungcheong Province, whose storage rooms are open to visitors, is currently running four exhibitions, including a storage exhibition showing its contemporary Japanese print collection. Japanese printmaking reached a vibrant peak in the 1970s, influenced by pop art and conceptual art, according to the museum. For families with children, MMCA Gwacheon runs the Children's Museum, which presents 'Tomorrow Will Be…' with a focus on hands-on and experiential learning. The exhibition was organized in collaboration with the Gallery Children's Biennale at the National Gallery Singapore.
Korea Herald
11 hours ago
- Korea Herald
The nihilist gets his treasure hunt
How webtoon artist Yoon Tae-ho's tale of scrappy 1970s grifters became Disney+'s latest bet on Korean content Fidgeting with his hands at a Samcheong-dong cafe on Monday afternoon, Yoon Tae-ho says, "I'm basically a nihilist." "My original ending for 'Low Life' was about shutting everything down -- I felt these people deserved nothing. "But watching the Disney+ adaptation, I realized their ending was actually better than mine," he continues. This admission comes from the artist behind some of Korea's most successful webtoon-to-screen adaptations. "Inside Men" exposed the obscene corruption of Korea's elite through a gangster's bloody revenge tale -- its 2015 film adaptation drew over nine million viewers. "Misaeng: Incomplete Life" turned the politics and daily grind of a corporate job into appointment television, with salarymen and women across the country seeing their lives reflected in protagonist Jang Geu-rae's struggles. Each adaptation has found its audience; no failures yet. "My work doesn't have many fantasy elements, so I guess the bar's pretty low when it comes to adaptation," Yoon says. His latest, "Low Life," follows small-time hustlers in 1977 chasing rumors of sunken treasure off Sinan, at the southwestern tip of Korea. The 11-episode series premiered last month with a sprawling cast including Ryu Seung-ryong, Lim Soo-jung and TVXQ's Jung Yunho. The project began, as many of Yoon's do, with late-night internet searches during a creative slump. He'd heard stories about a 14th-century treasure ship discovered off Sinan since childhood. "Word traveled slowly back then. You'd hear rumors and either jump in your truck or assume you were too late. My characters were definitely the 'let's go' types." Research took him first to a maritime museum in Mokpo, South Jeolla Province, where he examined recovered artifacts and the reconstructed vessel. He interviewed locals whose relatives had worked on the original underwater excavation project. He hired a drone company to photograph 11 locations around Sinan from every angle. Then a radio producer in Busan introduced him to an antiques dealer whose rapid-fire dialect captivated him. "That's when I knew this couldn't be some local story," he says. "It had to pull people from all over the country." Yoon's hunger for facts and context shows in his creative process, which starts with chronology. "I build a timeline for every major character from birth to the present," he explains. "Then I map historical events alongside them. "Take the midnight curfew. One character lived through it, another heard about it as a student, another only knows it from their father's stories. That completely changes how they see the world." At a time when every other release seems based on existing IP, tensions between original creators and those adapting their work can run high. Social media lights up with fans dissecting every change, ready to pounce on perceived deviations. Yoon couldn't care less. "Once I sell the rights, that's it," he says. "My work should already contain everything I wanted to express. Why expect the adaptation to fix what I couldn't?" Director Kang Yoon-sung would call him occasionally about changes: Could they switch the order of certain scenes? How bald should this character be? "The director was incredibly considerate," Yoon laughs. "Always checking if he's overstepping." But bigger projects come with bigger stakes. Watching his work become a major production, Yoon finds it hard to shake off the pressure. "What I loved about webtoons is their privacy," he says. "If I fail, it's not like the entire world collapses. But visiting TV production sets with 100-person crews -- these people have families to feed. If this fails, it's not just me who takes the hit." So he consciously avoids thinking about the outcomes for now, trying to maintain the freewheeling spirit of his earlier days. "The more responsibility you shoulder, the easier it is to lose that lightness. I work hard to hang onto it." Currently, Yoon is working on the third season of "Misaeng" and writing his first screenplay for another TV drama -- a 100-page treatment that reads like a novel. He's been living in a hanok in Boseong, South Jeolla Province, since last November, when the city offered him space to work. What started as a monthlong residency has now stretched to eight months. The nihilist seems to have found his balance.
![[팟캐스트] (715) 1교시만 사귀고 헤어진다?](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwimg.heraldcorp.com%2Fnews%2Fcms%2F2025%2F08%2F18%2Fnews-p.v1.20250812.0cb4c80a225a43b985445e503e6e3111_T1.jpg&w=3840&q=100)
Korea Herald
12 hours ago
- Korea Herald
[팟캐스트] (715) 1교시만 사귀고 헤어진다?
진행자: 최정윤, Tannith Kriel An hour romance: How South Korean kids escape 'mosol' tag 기사 요약: '모솔(모태 솔로)'에 대한 부정적인 인식이 초등학생들에게까지 퍼지면서, 일부 어린이들 사이에서는 1교시만 사귀고 곧바로 헤어지는 식으로 이른바 '모솔 딱지'를 피하려는 현상까지 나타나고 있어 [1] South Korean singer Jang Yoon-jeong was taken aback when her children shared an unusual aspect of their peers' dating culture: dating for just one period of the school day to avoid being labeled as 'mosol." be taken aback: 깜짝 놀라다, ~에 의해 허를 찔리다 be labeled as: ~으로 낙인찍히다, 분류되다 [2] These '1-period couples' start dating during recess and break up before the next class begins, Jang said in a recent TV appearance. Given that a single period in South Korean elementary schools is 40 minutes, these fleeting relationships last less than an hour. fleeting: 순식간의, 잠깐 동안의 last: 지속되다 [3] Adults may wonder what these kids do during this time, whether such brief relationships can even be called "real," and why they engage in them at all. One of the primary motivators behind this dating trend is an eagerness to avoid the dreaded 'mosol' label, a Korean slang term for someone who has never been in a relationship, which directly translates to 'single since birth.' dreaded: 두려운, 무서운 [4] To escape the label, some are engaging in brief, practically symbolic relationships, lasting as little as an hour, just to prove they have dated.
