On January 8, the 36th Golden Disc Award was held at the Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul. There, aespa took home not one, not two, and not three, but four awards!
Keep on reading to learn how aespa made history following their win.
aespa Makes History After Winning 'Artist of the Year' at the 36th Golden Disc Awards
The 36th Golden Disc Awards was held at the Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul, South Korea, on January 8. Unlike previous years, where the Golden Disc Awards was split into two years according to Digital Song and Album Divisions, this year's ceremony was held in one day.
This was done to comply with social distancing regulations. No audience was allowed in the venue and all the performances were pre-recorded.
Nominees for the event were released from November 2020 to mid-November 2021.
Nominees for the major categories were determined by quantitative measures, such as streaming counts and album sales.
The final winners were selected 60% based on sales until mid-December 2021 and 40% based on scoring by a judging panel. The panel contains 50 industry specialists, such as music distribution representatives, music critics, music program producing directors, and music journalists.
The ceremony's executive committee is also part of the panel.
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During the event, aespa won the "Artist of the Year" award. In addition, the girl group also won the "Digital Song Division Bonsang" for "Next Level."
aespa also won the "Cosmopolitan Artist Award" with SEVENTEEN and the "Best Rookie Artist" award with STAYC.
Following this win, aespa became one of only six artists to achieve the "Rookie Grand Slam." A "Rookie Grand Slam" is when an artist receives the "Rookie of the Year" award at all five major South Korean music shows.
aespa’s reaction when the MC told them that they’re the only group to be nominated in every category this year for GDA
— Karina♡ (@ujiminphoria) January 8, 2022
pic.twitter.com/k9gm7A3K81
They are the second SM Entertainment artist to achieve this feat, with the other being SHINee, who started the trend in 2008. SM Entertainment is also the only company to have multiple artists accomplish this milestone.
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The other four artists who achieved this feat is iKON in 2015, Wanna One in 2017, ITZY and TXT in 2019. ITZY made history for being the first girl group to complete a "Rookie Grand Slam."
Congratulations, aespa!
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aespa Recent Activities
Karina and Winter debuted in the SM Entertainment supergroup GOT (Girls on Top) the Beat on January 3, 2022, with the single "Step Back."
On December 20, aespa unveiled their remake of S.E.S's "Dreams Come True." The music video was directed by Lucid colour and featured the original holographic butterflies and wings in S.E.S's music video. Label mater BoA choreographed the song for aespa.
"Dreams Come True." peaked at number seven on the Billboard World Digital Songs chart and at number 17 on the Gaon Digital Chart.
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Written by Alexa Lewis
