Several influential artists in the field of Korean pop music received distinctions and awards in the 2016 Melon Music Awards (MMA) held last November 19 in the Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul, South Korea. Fans and netizens alike are surprised since the recipients were dominated by new boy and girl groups.
EXO swept several awards during this year's MMA. They brought home not only one but six awards: Artist of the Year Award, The Top Artist Award, Best Dancer Award, The Kakao Got Star Award, The TOP 10 Award and The Netizen's Choice Award. This year has been generous to the boy group since they just recently grabbed severals in the recently concluded 2016 Asia Artist Awards where they had five awards including the much coveted Daesang awards for artists, according to an earlier report here in Kpop Starz.
Aside from EXO, several new artists also received awards. The second best boy group for the month of November according to the Korean Business Research Institute, BTS, received the Top Album Award for their album "Wings". As told by Officially K-Music, its members J-Hope and Jin were even seen teary-eyed as they received their awards.
Three new girl groups also made it big time in this year's MMA as they bagged some of the most anticipated awards in the K-Pop industry. TWICE garnered two distinctions: Best Song of the Year Award for their hit "Cheer Up" and theTop 10 Artist Award alongside Red Velvet, MAMAMOO, BTS, BewhY, Akdong Musician, EXO, GFRIEND, Block B's Zico, and Girls' Generation's Taeyeon. Another new girl groups who received great distinctions are YG Entertainment's BLACKPINK who received the Best New Artist Award and Source Music's GFRIEND who garnered the Dance Award.
For the exhaustive list of the awardees, see the list below.
Top 10 Artists - Red Velvet, MAMAMOO, BTS, BewhY, Akdong Musician, EXO, GFRIEND, Block B’s Zico, Girls’ Generation’s Taeyeon, and TWICE
Best Artist of the Year Award - EXO
Best Album of the Year Award - BTS
Best Song of the Year Award - TWICE for "Cheer Up"
Best New Artist Award - BLACKPINK
Netizen Choice Award - EXO
Hot Trend Award - Block B's Zico
Ballad Award - Apink's Jung Eunji for Female and Lim Chang Jung for Male
Dance Award - GFRIEND for Female, EXO for Male
Rap/Hip-hop - Zico
Indie - Bolbbalgan4
Trot - Hong Jin Young
Folk/Blues - 10cm
OST - Yoon Mirae for "Always" from "Descendants of the Sun"
R&B/Soul - Suzy and Baekhyun's "Dream"
Rock - Ha Hyun Woo of Guckkasten's "Don't Cry"
Music Video Award (judges' score 100 percent) - Red Velvet for "Russian Roulette"
MBC Music Star Award (MBC Plus Media judges' 100 percent) - SEVENTEEN
Kakao Hot Star Award (Kakao Talk (Plus Friend) voting 100 percent) - EXO
Tencent QQ Music Asia Star Award (QQ Music user voting) - iKON
Hall of Fame (judges' score 100 percent) - Sechs Kies
Kpop Starz congratulates all the winners and wishes all to keep the hallyu wave stronger than ever in the years to come. Watch the two-part 2016 MMA below:
