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Young Modern is the fifth and final studio album by Australian rock music band Silverchair, released in Australia on 31 March 2007 and in the United States on 24 July 2007 and co-produced by Daniel Johns and Nick Launay. The title comes from a nickname given to Daniel Johns by composer Van Dyke Parks. The tracks "Straight Lines", "Reflections of a Sound", "If You Keep Losing Sleep" and "Mind Reader" were released as singles. Young Modern entered the ARIA Charts at No. 1 on 15 April 2007, their fifth consecutive album to do this, making Silverchair the first band to accomplish this feat in Australia. The album was certified Triple Platinum by the ARIA, peaked at No. 70 on the US Billboard 200 chart and opened at No. 8 on the New Zealand albums chart. Young Modern won six ARIA Awards in 2007, including Best Group, Best Rock Album, Single of the Year (for "Straight Lines") and Album of the Year. At the J Awards of 2007, the album was nominated for Australian Album of the Year.
Unlike previous Silverchair albums, Young Modern was funded independently by the band rather than by a record label. This was done to "remove the added label pressures", according to Billboard. The name Young Modern comes from a nickname given to Silverchair's lead singer, Johns, by Van Dyke Parks during their time working together on Diorama in 2002. The album features various guest appearances from Australian and international musicians such as Luke Steele, Julian Hamilton and Paul Mac, the latter of whom performed with Johns as the Dissociatives.
The first single from Young Modern, "Straight Lines", was released on 10 March 2007, a week before the album's release. "Straight Lines" entered the ARIA Charts at No. 1 on 25 March 2007, and held that rank for four weeks. It also peaked at No. 11 on the RMNZ charts. "Straight Lines" was certified double platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association. On 28 October 2007, "Straight Lines" won Best Selling Australian Single at the ARIA Music Awards of 2007, as well as Single of the Year.
The second single, "Reflections of a Sound", was released on 14 July 2007 as a digital single. Silverchair head back to the U.S.. Musichead. Retrieved on 17 July 2007. The music video for "Reflections of a Sound" was first screened on 8 June 2007, and was produced by Damon Escott and Stephen Lance of Head Pictures.
The third single from Young Modern was "If You Keep Losing Sleep", released on 9 October 2007. The song spent one week on the ARIA charts at No. 16, before dropping out of the charts. The music video for "If You Keep Losing Sleep" was orchestrated by Van Dyke Parks, and was produced by Damon Escott and Stephen Lance, who also created the "Reflections of a Sound" video. The video was described by Molly Meldrum as "the best video I've seen from Australia ever". Young Modern's fourth single, "Mind Reader", was released as an internet-only single on 23 February 2008. It had first appeared on radio in January that year.
Rolling Stone reviewer David Fricke called Silverchair's members "young (in their late twenties)...and aggressively modern", and Entertainment Weekly called the album a "polished glam-rock suite". Sputnikmusic reviewer Tyler Fisher also approved of the album, although he did not think it was as good as it was made out to be, commenting "It is not as good as the ARIA awards will undoubtedly make it out to be but still one of the better mainstream listens of the year."
During his weekly entertainment segment on the popular Australian breakfast show Sunrise, Australian music personality Molly Meldrum made a sincere comparison of the album to the classic The Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Nick Pearson of PopMatters, meanwhile, was critical of the album. He began his review with the statement "Once you reach the level of intellectual maturity where you can tell the difference between cryptic but poetic lyrics and nonsensical crap, you have outgrown Silverchair", and continued in the same fashion throughout. Pearson unfavourably likened Johns to Kurt Cobain, saying Johns shared a common inability: "an inability to write lyrics". His only praise was for the third single released from the album, "If You Keep Losing Sleep", stating "'If You Keep Losing Sleep' is proof that Silverchair are capable of recording interesting music".
The song "Straight Lines" was featured as downloadable content for the video game Rock Band in 2010.
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