Melon Music Awards 2025

 Well, well. Here we are with another awards show, which means a whole new set of performances. As with the others, I'm going to stay out of the way of the wins and performances. When you make it down to the end, that's when I'll yap.

See you then! Enjoy the performances!

performances

10CM (_CDEFG + To Reach You)

aespa (Drift + Rich Man + Dirty Work)

ALLDAY PROJECT (ONE MORE TIME + LOOK AT ME + FAMOUS)

Alpha Drive One (HOLA SOLAR + FORMULA)

BOYNEXTDOOR (Hollywood Action + IF I SAY, I LOVE YOU)

EXO (Wolf + Monster + The Eve + Love Shot + Growl + Back it up)

G-Dragon (DRAMA + POWER + HOME SWEET HOME + TOO BAD + Crooked)

Hanroro (0+0 + Landing in Love)

Hearts2Hearts (The Chase + Focus)

IDID (CHAN-RAN + PUSH BACK)

ILLIT (Do The Dance + Not Cute Anymore)

IVE (XOXZ + ATTITUDE + REBEL HEART)

Jennie (Seoul City + ZEN + like JENNIE)

KiiiKiii (To Me From Me + I DO ME + DANCING ALONE)

NCT Wish (poppop + Videohood + COLOR)

RIIZE (Fame + Bag Bad Back + Fly up)

PLAVE (Dash + BBUU!)

Team Jay Park (Jay Park, H1GHR MUSIC, LNGSHOT, Dayoung)

Woodz (Drowning + 00:30)

Zico (Tough Cookie + No you can't)

winners

Artist of the Year (Daesang): G-Dragon

Album of the Year (Daesang): Übermensch - G-Dragon 

Song of the Year (Daesang): "HOME SWEET HOME (feat. Taeyang & Daesung)" - G-Dragon

Record of the Year (Daesang): Jennie

Top 10 Artists: aespa, BOYNEXTDOOR, G-Dragon, IVE, Jennie, Lim Young Wong, NCT Wish, PLAVE, RIIZE, Rosé

MILLIONS Top 10: A flower bookmark, Pt.3 - IU, Caligo Pt.1 - PLAVE, HAPPY BURSTDAY - Seventeen, IM HERO 2 - Lim Young Woong, IVE EMPATHY - IVE, No Genre - BOYNEXTDOOR, ODYSSEY - RIIZE, rosie - Rosé, Übermensch - G-Dragon

Best Male Solo: G-Dragon

Best Female Solo: Rosé

Best Male Group: BOYNEXTDOOR

Best Female Group: IVE

Best Male Performance: RIIZE

Best Female Performance: ILLIT

Best Producer: Zico

Best Songwriter: G-Dragon

Best Music Video: KiiiKiii "I Do Me"

Stage of the Year: aespa

New Artist of the Year: ALLDAY PROJECT, Hearts2Hearts

Global Rising Artist: IDID

Best OST: HUNTR/X "Golden" (KPop Demon Hunters)

Track Zero Choice: Hanroro "Goodbye, My Summer"

Hot Trend: Woodz

Global Artist: aespa

Berriz Global Fans' Choice: Hearts2Hearts

Japan Favourite Artist by U NEXT: BOYNEXTDOOR

KakaoBank Everyone's Star: NCT Wish

final thoughts

I always find the actual performances more impressive, because this is the highlight of the year for many groups, getting to really show off and do the big, extravagant performances that just bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses. The wins are good, but the performances are what could bring in the new fans. Which is why I put them first. 

So up with the performances, you'll notice a lot of links that go to my reviews of songs. Feel free to take a look at them, and if there are any of these songs you'd like for me to review, you're absolutely welcome and invited to ask me to do so. Most of them won't be eligible for a GH or BBS post, but I do also take requests for regular reviews as well. I did one for NCT DoJaeJung's "Perfume". Down in the winner's circle, there are also a bunch of links, and those go to the artist pages if I've gotten my act together to actually get the artist page done and posted, where you can find all the of the posts I've done on those artists. I can tell you that one of them has had a Greatest Hits post done in it, but otherwise, again, I'm welcome to any requests (if it's for a title track, you can submit it, but I will be waiting until it's two years old to post).

Now for the stuff you probably care about! First up, the awards!

As I was typing this up, my honest to goodness reaction to seeing the best producer win was "You go, Zico!" He and his kids both got some wins! BOYNEXTDOOR got four wins, and Zico got his win, which makes five between the two of them. 

BLACKPINK is represented by two of their members as soloists here in the awards: Rosé and Jennie. One got a Daesang (whoo!!!) and one got best female soloists, which honestly is a pretty good indication of how much of an impact the two of them have had this year. I haven't forgotten APT. Mostly because the kids I tutor talked about it incessantly at the beginning of the year.

I'm actually pleased with the older artists being represented a little bit. Most of these awards have been heavily skewed to the younger artists, as in debuted in this decade, but we've got a couple that debuted in the 00s, and several in the 10s.

I'm delighted by the albums though. Most of them I've heard in their entirety (one of which I have heavily listened to this year), and honestly there isn't a single one of them that I don't think deserve to be on that list. It's an incredible set of songs contained within.

Woodz being a hot trend isn't much of a surprise, because if you were keeping an eye on the charts (and the fact that he got a win for a b-side this year while he was in the military), Drowning has been trending high since October of 2024.

There is a repeat name that I do feel the need to mention, because he did get three of the four Daesangs and then four more awards beside that. It's your boy GD. Since this is coming out after I dropped my 2025 recap of the music show wins, he actually got the most number of triple crowns of any artist. So I'm not exactly all that surprised by this either.

How entertaining is it for me that HUNTR/X and "Golden" are getting real world wins? Very, but at the same time, the effect is also real.

Okay, time for the performances! My favorite part!

(I highly recommend y'all watch the fancams as the vocals are generally better across the board, but I gave you the "official version" up above which are sometimes a bit cleaned up).

You know what? Even if EXO is currently only five, they smashed that out of the park and proved that they are back. Back from the military, better than ever. This is what award shows are for. Bring back the legends. The hard part of going from nine to six to five is part distribution and the choreography changes, but these guys are just rolling through their set like they've never been anything but a five-man team. It's deeply impressive and a testament to their skills and training that they can absorb the missing members' parts so well the way they have. Also, is it just me or is Love Shot looking better than it was seven years ago? I love Love Shot though. It's probably one of my favorite EXO songs. That and Monster. And Kai absolutely killed his solo.

You know I have to talk about Woodz though. Oh, he's pretty. And I'm not sure what's up with that...shirt he's got on, but you know what? It works. Also, eleven years into his career, also recently discharged, and he's been showing off some major chops. Has it been getting him the attention he deserves? Absolutely. Just a dude standing on a stage singing like he's going through five divorces. And the cool part is you can actually hear the crowd singing when he asks them to sing. Ooh, he's a good performer. And the fact that he can sing like that and completely switch his body language and hop into choreography and rap like that? This guy is impressive.

Here's the thing. I know that I can't listen to KiiiKiii in my free time, but I did want to check out their performance. The conclusion I came to is that I may need to do a review of To Me From Me, considering I apparently missed that one. The dance portion of the performance was a little soft, but I don't know if that is because that's what the choreography asks for, if that's the current popular style, or what. But, generally speaking, they didn't seem uncomfortable, which is what I want to be seeing regardless of literally anything else. As long as they're comfortable on stage, I'm fine with a lot of other things and they're showing some good potential.

I mean this in the kindest, most observational way, but I'd be surprised if Alpha Drive One was singing live. There could have been any number of reasons for this, and I'm not disparaging the group. I actually like this performance better than the one at MAMAs, because they seem a lot more comfortable, which does seem to confirm my theory that it was nerves and stress. But, this is important and I'm actually quite proud of their growth in the last month.

Choi Hojong is a gorgeous dancer, and I love that with just about every stage G-Dragon has done, he's included other performers. It's a great way to connect it back to art. I'm not sure if there's anything more iconic than one of the Kings of K-Pop showing up wearing a crown. However, I deeply love that he's making it very clear that he's live because he's not even pretending to match the original recording, and he's doing more of it than he did at the MAMAs, which means his condition is probably better. I know that there are people who don't like his voice as well for this (I've seen enough comments regarding that recently), but I think it matches his speaking voice a lot better, and as a bit of a metaphor, it's kind of like he's blending Kwon Jiyoung and G-Dragon in his performances more than he has previously. Also, I adore the Crooked performance for a very specific reason, which I'll go into more specifics later. But listen to the crowd.

Thanks, everyone, for letting me ramble on and just kind of fangirl about the wins and performances. I really am looking forward to seeing the rookies settle into their own, because a lot of them are showing a lot of promise. And I like that.

I'm just going to finish this off with G-Dragon wandering into the idol section. He mentioned on his show he did that BIGBANG hasn't connected with the younger idols as much because of the group hiatus and military and all of that, but that he wants more opportunities for the interactions between the idols. And Zico and his kids are kind of the perfect way to work with that. Zico is a safer space if Kwon Jiyong came out a little more than G-Dragon (which it looks like he did a little, which is adorable). And Zico's kids, BOYNEXTDOOR, have a tendency to just love on their sunbaes if the way the entirety of Block B and D.O have adopted them and seem willing to fight Zico for them. Also, TheBlackLabel is YG-lite, so there's a familiarity there with ALLDAY PROJECT. He picked well. I hope if BIGBANG gets invited to any of them next year, we get this again.