Young Modern

Untitled

Young Modern is the fifth album by the Australian band Silverchair, which was released on March 31, 2007. It is the first album to ever chart as number one on iTunes through orders taken for the album before its release. Young Modern débuted at number one on the Australian albums chart (ARIA) on April 9, 2007.

Young Modern has also helped Silverchair make history, making them the first Australian band to ever have five #1 albums. This is greater than the achievements of Cold Chisel and Midnight Oil who had four #1 albums each.

The album reached #70 in the U.S.

Recording and Production

The band announced in 2005 that they had plans to record a new album in 2006. Work on Young Modern then began in 2006. During 2006, the band played a limited number of shows to test the new material on live audiences. The album was rumoured to be a solo double album by Daniel Johns, who had already written enough songs to fill two albums. These rumours were later denied by Johns in the April 2006 issue of Rolling Stone.

Following the brief tour with his project group The Dissociatives, Daniel Johns made plans to release a solo album. While writing and recording home demos of the new songs, he decided that the works would better suit a group effort than a solo release. After reuniting with Joannou and Gillies, Silverchair then spent five weeks in the Australian Hunter Valley in late 2005 to practice and sharpen Johns' new material. Following this, the band recorded intermediate full band demo versions of the songs. To record the final versions of these songs, the band travelled to Los Angeles to record with record producer Nick Launay at Seedy Underbelly Studios. Johns has remained the co-producer of the album. During the L.A. sessions, additional songs were written and recorded. Van Dyke Parks was hired to compose orchestral arrangements for three songs: If You Keep Losing Sleep, All Across The World and the 3 part epic Those Thieving Birds/Strange Behaviour. Johns and Parks travelled to Prague to have the orchestral arrangements recorded by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.

The album will feature various guest appearances from other Australian (and possibly international) musicians such as Luke Steele, Julian Hamilton and Paul Mac (who previously collaborated with Johns in The Dissociatives and enlisted both Joannou and Gillies for his solo album 3000 Feet High).

Mixing the album resumed in January 2007. The band announced on their website that they were waiting for their mixer, David Botrill, to become available to finish the process.

The album was released on March 31, 2007; the first confirmed single "Straight Lines" made its radio and Internet début on February 2, 2007. The album was released in North America on July 24, 2007.

The album artwork seems to be heavily influenced by the "De Stijl" art movement (also known as neoplasticism) of the early 20th century. It resembles the works of Piet Mondrian.

Singles

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Track listing

On February 26, the track listing for Young Modern was published on Silverchair's official website.

#	Title	Songwriters	Length
1.	"Young Modern Station"	Daniel Johns and Julian Hamilton	3:11
2.	"Straight Lines"	Daniel Johns and Julian Hamilton	4:18
3.	"If You Keep Losing Sleep"*	Daniel Johns	3:20
4.	"Reflections of a Sound"	Daniel Johns	4:09
5.	"Those Thieving Birds (Part 1) / Strange Behaviour / Those Thieving Birds (Part 2)"*	Daniel Johns	7:26
6.	"The Man That Knew Too Much"	Daniel Johns	4:19
7.	"Waiting All Day"	Daniel Johns and Julian Hamilton	4:28
8.	"Mind Reader"	Daniel Johns and Julian Hamilton	3:07
9.	"Low"	Daniel Johns	3:48
10.	"Insomnia"	Daniel Johns	3:06
11.	"All Across the World"*	Daniel Johns	4:01
12.	"English Garden" (iTunes Australia only)	Unknown	4:23

* Includes orchestral arrangements by Van Dyke Parks.

Included in the Limited Bonus DVD / iTunes Australian pre-order edition of Young Modern is the featurette "Making of Young Modern" as well as the music video for "Straight Lines".

B-sides, Outtakes, Demos

1. "Sleep All Day" - 3:16 - Demo from "Straight Lines" single
2. "Don't Want To Be The One" - 4:14 - (Robert Hirst, Peter Garrett, Martin Rotsey, Jim Moginie) (Live cover of the 1981 Midnight Oil song from "Straight Lines" single, recorded during their 2006 Homebake performance)
3. "English Garden" (Included on the iTunes Australia download edition of Young Modern as Bonus track & on the iTunes US "Straight Lines" single)

External links

• Young Modern at MusicBrainz
• Silverchair Online
• Silverchair.nu