IU’s Flower Bookmarks Keep Korean Pop in Conversation
Through careful song choices and collaborations across generations, IU’s remake series offers a personal route into Korea’s older pop recordings.
A song can be new to its listener long after it has become someone else’s memory. That is the generous possibility inside IU’s A Flower Bookmark recordings. For a fan who discovers Korean music through a contemporary star, a remake can open a door sideways, toward an older voice, a different arrangement and an unfamiliar period of pop history.
The series began with the seven-track A Flower Bookmark on May 16, 2014. A second instalment followed in September 2017, and a third in May 2025. Returning to those records now is a chance to think about what happens when a familiar singer carries another generation’s songs into the present.
Image credit: IU "Just One Step... That Much More" concert, 31 May 2014 01.jpg — Holic, CC BY 4.0. Wikimedia-served proportional preview downloaded unchanged. No crop, recoloring or retouching. Preserve the full image and proportions.
A selection with a personal shape
The official introduction accompanying “My Old Story” describes the first album as a collection IU chose herself from older songs she enjoyed. Its stated approach was to preserve their emotional character while adding her own voice and feeling. The project’s intimacy starts with that act of selection: somebody has listened, kept something close and decided to pass it on. The original 1theK release remains a useful doorway into that idea.
A remake has at least two identities. It belongs to a song’s earlier history, and it belongs to the moment in which the new singer performs it. Hearing only the newer recording can still be rewarding. Finding the earlier one adds another person to the conversation.
That is especially useful for international listeners. A catalogue page may initially present an unfamiliar list of names. Follow a single credit and it becomes a connection: this melody has a writer, this arrangement has predecessors, and this recording is one version of a life that extends beyond the current artist.
“My Old Story” introduces that process through a small emotional scale. The release’s own description emphasizes the feeling of the original and a change of viewpoint, rather than a display of conspicuously modern production. It offers a helpful way to approach the project: listen for how a singer inhabits an existing song, as much as for how dramatically the surface has changed.
When the earlier voice joins in
“Meaning of You” makes the exchange unusually tangible. The 2014 recording features Kim Chang-wan, whose band Sanulrim released the song in 1984. In 1theK’s official music clip, the collaboration includes recording-booth footage. Its accompanying account describes Kim’s involvement in shaping the vocal feeling as well as singing.
Image credit: Kim Chang-wan.jpg — Trainholic, CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikimedia-served proportional preview downloaded unchanged. No crop, recoloring or retouching. Preserve the full image and proportions.
There is something particularly revealing about seeing the singers share that working space. The older recording’s history is represented by a living musician taking part in the new one. The result invites an understanding of musical inheritance as a relationship between people, with room for guidance, difference and play.
A guest credit can look small on a streaming screen. Here, it changes the meaning of the project. Kim is part of how the song reaches the listener, not simply a name to look up afterward. For anyone curious about Korean popular music beyond a single generation of stars, that is a rewarding connection to follow.
The bookmarks keep multiplying
The years between releases also give the series an interesting shape. The 2017 edition and the 2025 third instalment each contain six tracks in their digital editions. These are compact collections that can introduce a handful of connections without claiming to summarize all of Korean pop.
The third album extends that approach through songs including “Never Ending Story,” first released by Boohwal in 2002. Its collaborations include Wonstein on “Last Scene” and Balming Tiger on “A Beautiful Person.” The latter reaches back to Shin Jung-hyun and the Yupjuns’ 1974 song, according to the release’s Apple Music notes. The distance between those dates is part of the pleasure: musical discovery does not have to proceed in a straight line.
For a newcomer, the most useful next step may be very small. Keep the original artist’s name beside a favorite remake in a personal playlist. Search for that artist’s own recording through an authorized music service. If English titles differ between platforms, use the Korean song title and the credited performer to help distinguish versions.
Avoid treating the comparison as a contest that needs a winner. A voice can make a familiar melody feel more restrained, more conversational or more exposed without erasing what came before. Different recordings can become meaningful at different moments in a listener’s life.
That is what makes A Flower Bookmark worth revisiting as a series. It leaves the earlier names visible and offers more than one route onward. A fan may arrive for IU and leave with another artist to discover. The old song, meanwhile, has found someone for whom it is entirely new.