BTS Is Nominated For 5 Awards At The Incredibly Prestigious Korean Music Awards

The Korean Music Awards are unique among Korean award shows because the nomination and decision processes don’t contain any sales or fan-vote components. Instead, a panel of music critics, academics, radio show producers and other industry professionals make recommendations. This means that the KMAs are a lot less of a popularity concert compared to other award shows and they also don’t accept sponsorship which may influence their decision-making.

The prolific BTS have been nominated for 5 awards which shows how much industry professionals respect their pure musical talent while setting aside the size of ARMY. Both “Fake Love” and “Idol” were nominated for best pop song as BTS are categorised as a pop group.

Best Pop Song:
BTS – Fake Love
BTS – Idol
Red Velvet – Bad Boy
ADOY – Wonder
HEIZE – Jenga

The boys also picked up a nomination for “Best Pop Album” along with some other very talented artists.

Best Pop Album:
BTS – Love Yourself: Answer
BoA – Woman
Uhm Jung Hwa – The Cloud Dream of the Nine
Lee Moon Sae – Between Us
Lee Jin Ah – Full Course
Jang Pil Soon – Sogil 8

BTS has transcended the pop genre and have earned a nomination for “Musician of the Year”. They are the only idol group nominated for this award.

Musician of the Year:
BTS
Kim Sawol
Say Sue Me
Sun Ji Lee
Jang Pil Soon

Similarly for “Song of the Year”, BTS emphatically represents the pop genre.

Song of the Year:
BTS – Idol
BTS – Fake Love
Mommy Son – Shonen Jump
Say Sue Me – Old Town
Kiha and The Faces – That’s Just What You Think
HYUKOH – Love Ya!

And finally “Love Yourself: Answer” also made earned a nomination for the best overall album of the year.

Album of the Year:
BTS – Love Yourself: Answer
Mid Air Thief – Crumbling
Life and Time – Age
Say Sue Me – When We Were Together
Jang Pil Soon – Solgi 8
Huckleberry P – Aurora People

The selection committee even provided their reasoning for the nominations of “Fake Love”, “Idol” and “Love Yourself: Answer”.

Fake Love: “It is not an easy job to assess the quality of idol group music in Korea. This is because it is impossible to do so without understanding the nature and direction of the group. It is especially so, such as in the case of BTS, when every single track has a quality as something that develops and builds an ongoing story. In “FAKE LOVE,” V, who is in charge of the intro track of the album, takes the intro part of the song, and Jin, who sings the most heartrending yet ardent emotion among the solo tracks of [LOVE YOURSELF] series, takes the chorus part. When he sings the back of love, shouting, the effectiveness of “FAKE LOVE” is perfectly proven. It is the moment when the completeness of the world that BTS has been meticulously developed is reached by a single title track.” – Park Hee-A

Love Yourself Answer: Overwhelming. A total of 26 tracks on two CDs, under one theme of “LOVE YOURSELF,” skillfully, without any sign of distress, embody the narrative the group has been developing for 2 years and 5 months and a variety of issues came from within and around the group almost every day. What is most impressive is the sense of stability given by the name “BTS,” which firmly stands in the middle of a maelstrom of sounds and topics — from members’ solo tracks to remixes — that can only be described as a “chaos.” The only people who can bear this weight, this heat, and this volume are them. – Kim Younha 

Idol: “Idol music has been running through 25 years, overcoming extreme opposition from the older generations and blatant sarcasm from critics. Sailing at a high speed, as it reaches “IDOL,” it presents peculiarities to the still-existing prejudice through the message “who can stop those who love themselves” and the counterattack of rhythm that has been becoming forgotten. There are not many examples where such bold experiments brought the realization of corresponding attitudes.” – Hyun Jiwoon

The 2019 Korean Music Awards takes place at the Guro Arts Valley Theater on the 26th of February at 7pm KST.