MAMA Awards 2025: Day 1
Given my relative verboseness and frequent rambling, it would be understandable if you're expecting me to ramble about now as well. But I'm not going to! Yet. That'll come at the end. Instead, just enjoy the performances and the winners.
My little comments will show up at the end.
In the meantime, enjoy!
performances
Alpha Dive One (Intro + FORMULA)
BOYNEXTDOOR (Hollywood Action)
Bumsup/Park Bo-gum (Ink Becoming Flesh)
Enhypen (No Doubt + Bad Desire (With or Without You))
Hearts2Hearts (FOCUS)
i-dle (Good Thing)
IVE (XOXZ + REBEL HEART)
MEOWW (TURN IT UP)
NCT Wish (COLOR)
Super Junior (Express Mode + Mr. Simple + BONAMANA + Sorry, Sorry)
Treasure (2025 Free + PARADISE + I WANT YOUR LOVE)
TWS (OVERDRIVE)
Yeonjun (Coma + Talk To You)
match-ups
Hearts2Hearts X NCT Wish
TWS X MEOVV
winners
Fan's Choice of the Year (Daesang): Enhypen
Song of the Year (Daesang): Rosé X Bruno Mars - APT.
Fan's Choice Male Top 10 (Bonsang): Baekhyun, Seventeen, Jin, Enhypen, G-Dragon, J-Hope, NCT Dream, RIIZE, Stray Kids, ZEROBASEONE
Fan's Choice Female Top 10 (Bonsang): Irene, IU, ILLIT, aespa, BABYMONSTER, Hearts2Hearts, i-dle, ITZY, LE SSERAFIM, TWICE
Best New Artist: CORTIS, Hearts2Hearts
Inspiring Achievement Award: Super Junior
Global Trend Song: IVE - REBEL HEART
Favorite/Most Popular Male Group: BOYNEXTDOOR
Favorite/ Most Popular Female Group: IVE
final thoughts
As with the KGMAs, you'll notice a lot of links going on up there. The links up with the performances go to the reviews I did for the songs, if applicable. If there are any of them that you'd like me to do a review for, either a regular one or one of the specialty posts I do if applicable (though there should only be one group that I could do one for since they're old enough songs), feel free to drop that in The Form. The benefit to checking out the reviews, other than my thoughts on the songs, is that those songs are in their original, full form while many of these performances are abridged or altered for the awards show, and I always share the music video with my reviews. Or you can just look up the songs. But this way you don't have to type and you just have to click a few links.
Similarly, down with the winners, there are more links. Rather than going to individual song reviews, those links go the artist pages, where I house all the reviews I have done for a group (or any of the specialty posts) as well as sharing some basic information on them. It's more sparse than I'd like it to be, especially when you look at the Artists page, AKA my index, but it is what it is.
Okay, boring stuff out of the way, let's get on to the good stuff. And for the record, even if I don't mention a group or a performance specifically, that doesn't mean I didn't love it as well. I just have limited space and time to talk about all of them even if I'd like to.
First up, any comments I have on the awards. I am a little disappointed by who didn't win one of the Daesangs, but I'm not upset that Enhypen won. If that makes sense. Big congratulations to them and the Engenes! Y'all did well and deserve the win. And congrats to all the groups who won Bonsangs! There are a lot of active groups, and a lot of heavy hitters, so the fact that y'all did so well should be something to be proud of.
I do have to be a little bit frustrated by the number of companies represented. Only three of the artists have never been under one of the Big 4 companies. To help you understand that frustration, there have been over ninety (90) groups to debut in 2025 so far. I'd love to see who the other groups were that were up for Best New Artist. Not that these groups aren't great. Fully supportive of them and their future, and big congratulations to them! As I just said, they beat out a lot of other groups. Just something I think is worth pointing out.
It's not a long of awards for this day, although I did have to be amused at the song of the year because honestly, I don't think I've ever seen anything more appropriate. If you'll remember, I spent the first part of the year bemoaning the fact that they didn't have any performances for the music show wins posts I do, but honestly, if it had been any other song, I would have raised a disbelieving eyebrow at it. Well, there's one other song that wouldn't have prompted a disbelieving eyebrow.
Okay, time for the part that I like the best, because the end of year award show stages are almost always superlative and dramatic and over the top. In short, everything I want.
First and foremost, let's talk about the TWS X MEOVV stage. First of all, I wish there were more interactions between the two groups because I just want more interactions between groups in general. Second of all, I'm almost positive that this was meant to be a water/fire stage, but in light of the Hong Kong fire, both of them had changed lyrics to remove references to fire. MEOVV's was more obvious since the original song is called "BURNING UP", but still, that's great. Love that. Hopefully everyone can be found. Thirdly, you can see each of the stages individually and then the whole combo stage together up there, so you can mix and match how you're feeling and what you want to watch. And they did incredibly. These are both powerhouse groups that will be hitting their second anniversary in 2026 and if they continue on that trajectory, they easily could be industry leaders in a few years. I so wish that I could listen to MEOVV. Alas.
And you know I have to mention my i-dle girls. They're stunning. The play with using a single mic at the beginning? My queens. Soyeon is the same kind of idol as Solar and I couldn't love that anymore than I do. I literally do not think it's possible. The strutting they did? The choreography? The costuming? That sick guitar solo during the dance break? The fact that all of their backup dancers are women? One of my favorite stages of the night, easily, and it was only one song, when it's a well-established fact that I love crossovers and mashups.
I've got a bit of a special attachment to Super Junior, for a number of reasons (the first of which being the connection to NU'EST), so when I heard they'd be performing at the MAMAs, I was 100% on board with this. The beginning of Express Mode still makes me laugh. But I have to give a shout out to the obviously live mics here. You can hear it both in the weird reverb with the sound system as well as the fact that you can definitely hear the breaths as they sing. Which is expected of a twenty-year group. But weird audio or mic issues aside, the vocals are doing their job and the rappers are doing theirs. All while dancing like they aren't around the age of forty. They may not be junior anymore, but with Eunhyuk's handstand during Mr. Simple and the fact that some of them look like they're aging in reverse, they're still super. And, the coolest bit? So I like to watch the end of year award show stages, if available, when I'm looking into new (to me) groups, and especially if I like the choreography. And I could be wrong, but I think they did a throwback to the 2011 MAMA performance with Sorry, Sorry. But listen to that crowd. This is the success that can only be achieved by surviving longer. (Also, yay, Heechul!!!)
Okay. This was also our first real look at the brand new Alpha Drive One, in pre-debut. I obviously had to take a look at the newbies and see how my man Xinlong is doing (and try not to compare to the older groups on the roster because that's not fair to them.) I'm not going to say too much about them because even when I was watching them, I could feel my brain starting to review the song and that's not what this is for, other than to nudge you to take a look yourself, but I will say that the camerawork? Not great, and I'd say that it actually probably hinders them, which is hilarious because this is MNET's new baby and you'd think they'd do a better job. Still, I'm going to be watching their careers and progress with curiosity. I hope they continue to do well.
Thanks everyone for reading! Look forward to Day 2 and all the performances we got there! These performances were incredible and it was a good batch of wins for these groups to add to their rosters. If you have anything you want more of my thoughts on, either because I didn't say anything or because you want more depth, feel free to drop a comment. Or you can use The Form to nudge me towards doing a review or a GH or BBS posts on a specific song.
Thanks for your time and for reading! You're amazing!
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