K-pop music awards ready to honor artists in coming months

Major K-pop music awards are preparing to recognize musicians for their achievements starting in November.

Girl group NewJeans attends the 37th Golden Disc Awards held in Bangkok last year. [GOLDEN DISC AWARDS ORGANIZING COMMITTEE]

Major K-pop music awards are preparing to recognize musicians' achievements in the past year, starting in November.

The 2023 MAMA Awards will take place on Nov. 28 and 29 at the Tokyo Dome.

It will be the first Korean award ceremony to take place at the Tokyo Dome. The ceremony was held in several countries around Asia, including Singapore and Hong Kong.

K-pop artist Jeon Somi and actor Park Bo-gum will return as hosts for this year's ceremony, the organizer CJ ENM said Thursday. The two stars hosted the ceremony last year.

Jeon will be hosting the first day and Park the second day.

The award ceremony will be broadcast on its channel Mnet and will be streamed live worldwide through YouTube channels: Mnet K-POP, Mnet TV, KCON official and M2.

The MAMA Awards, whose full name used to be "Mnet Asian Music Awards," rebranded its name to the MAMA Awards in 2022.

The Melon Music Awards (MMA) 2023 will take place on Dec. 2 at Incheon Inspire Arena, a new facility specialized for K-pop performances.

The MMA unveiled its 30 nominees for the Top 10 category Thursday, which selects 10 K-pop artists who were the hottest in the past year, determined by the number of votes they received from the users of streaming platform Melon and other music records.

Nominees include girl groups NewJeans, Le Sserafim and IVE and boy bands BTS, Seventeen, NCT Dream and Tomorrow X Together. Jisoo of Blackpink, Jimin and Jungkook of BTS also made the list as solo artists.

The vote for the category will last until Nov. 16, and the winners will be announced during the ceremony.

The award ceremony will be streamed on Melon, streaming platform Wavve and Japanese platform Abema TV.

MMA is a music award organized by Melon and Kakao Entertainment. The ceremony first started online in 2005 and held its first in-person ceremony in 2009.

The 38th Golden Disc Awards is also under preparation, which will take place on Jan. 6 in Jakarta. It will be its fifth time to hold the ceremony overseas.

The nominees will be announced on Dec. 4 on its official website and social media.

The Golden Disc Awards, hosted by the JoongAng Group, started in 1986 and recognizes musicians for their achievements. Last year's ceremony in Thailand was its 37th.

The 33rd Seoul Music Awards will take place on Jan. 2 in Bangkok. This will be the first time the ceremony is held outside of Korea.

Voting for award categories, including the Hallyu Special Award and Popularity Award, will start on Saturday on its official voting app.

The Hallyu Special Award is based on votes from outside Korea, and the Popularity Award is based on votes placed in Korea.

Voting will be conducted in two phases. The first starts on Saturday at 12 p.m. until Nov. 23, following the second beginning on Nov. 24 at 12 p.m. until Dec. 13.

The first Seoul Music Awards was held in 1990 by sports media outlet Sports Seoul.

To find out more about K-pop artists, visit Celeb Confirmed!

BY KIM JI-YE [kim.jiye@joongang.co.kr]