BTS Just Won Album of the Year at MMA 2026, and aespa Took a Grand Prize That Didn’t Exist Last Year

BTS won Album of the Year, one of the Melon Music Awards’ grand prizes, for their fifth studio album ARIRANG on Day 1 of MMA 2026 on November 14, 2026, at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul, beating aespa’s LEMONADE, AKMU’s Kwae Hwa (Blooming), CORTIS’s GREENGREEN and IVE’s REVIVE+ (StarNews; Hankyung, Nov. 14, 2026). aespa became the first-ever winner of the brand-new grand prize, Global-K Artist of the Year, and RESCENE and Hearts2Hearts went home with three trophies each. “Please look forward to next year, and the year after that,” Winter told the crowd (Hankyung, Nov. 14, 2026).

I’ll be honest: as a fan, this was one of those nights where I kept refreshing the winners list just to see another name I love on it. BTS weren’t even in the building and still took the biggest album prize, a girl group that debuted in 2024 topped the fan vote, and I.O.I stood on an awards stage together again ten years after they first did.

Day 1 at a glance

Winner	Awards on Day 1
BTS	Album of the Year (grand prize), Stage of the Year, Global TOP10
aespa	Global-K Artist of the Year (new grand prize), Global TOP10
RESCENE	Global TOP10, Hot Trend, KakaoBank Everyone’s Star
Hearts2Hearts	TOP10, Global TOP10, Global Impact Artist
RIIZE	Global TOP10, Best Performance (Male)
ATEEZ	Best Performance (Male), Hot Trend
I.O.I	TOP10, Best Music Style
G-DRAGON	Global TOP10
YENA	Best Solo (Female)
Lim Young-woong	Best Solo (Male)
TWS	Global Impact Artist
TUIDE	Global Rising Artist
Kim Min-seok (MeloMance)	Best OST, “Love Language”
Nicole Kim (BIGHIT MUSIC)	Best Producer

Source: Hankyung (Nov. 14, 2026, Day 1 round-up), cross-checked with Soompi and Xports News. Bruno Mars (Best Pop Artist) and Japan’s HANA (J-pop Favorite Artist) also won on Day 1. The remaining three grand prizes are handed out on Day 2, November 15.

Also read: I.O.I Disbanded Nine Years Ago. Now They're Up for Artist of the Year

BTS: Album of the Year and Stage of the Year

BTS didn’t attend, so there was no speech (StarNews, Nov. 14, 2026). The record spoke for them. Their three Day 1 trophies, Album of the Year, Stage of the Year and Global TOP10, cover the two halves of their year: the album and the tour.

The year in numbers

• ARIRANG debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 641,000 units, 532,000 of them pure sales, the biggest debut of 2026 at the time (Michigan Public/NPR, Mar. 30, 2026).
• Lead single “SWIM” debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100, and 13 ARIRANG tracks charted on the Hot 100 at once (Bandwagon, 2026).
• ARIRANG was one of only two albums to sell four million copies on Korea’s Circle Chart in 2026; CORTIS’s GREENGREEN was the other (Sports Kyunghyang, Sept. 17, 2026).
• The ARIRANG world tour is scheduled for 85 shows in 34 cities across 23 countries, from April 2026 to March 2027. By the end of May, Billboard estimated its gross at $204 million, and May alone ($127.8 million from 12 shows) set the record for the biggest month by a group since the Boxscore chart began tracking it in 2019 (SBS Star, citing Billboard, June 30, 2026).
• Back home, three nights at Goyang Stadium in April drew 132,000 fans (Money Today, Apr. 13, 2026).

That tour is what Stage of the Year rewards, and it’s still going.

“SWIM,” the Hot 100 No. 1 that opened the ARIRANG era: 174.8 million views as of Nov. 14, 2026.

aespa: the first Global-K Artist of the Year

Melon created a new grand prize this year, Global-K Artist of the Year, based on its Global-K Chart, which combines K-pop listening data from Korea, China and Japan. aespa are its first winner, and they also took a Global TOP10 trophy (Hankyung; Newsis, Nov. 14, 2026).

Karina’s speech was pure aespa: “We’re always working to repay you with cooler stages, so please look forward to aespa from here on.” Winter added the line that had fans screaming: “Please look forward to next year, and the year after that” (Hankyung, Nov. 14, 2026).

The year in numbers

• Second full album LEMONADE passed 1,037,190 copies on Circle Chart by June 11, 2026, their eighth million-seller (Sports Kyunghyang, June 11, 2026).
• It debuted at No. 9 on the Billboard 200, their third top-10 album (Cineplay, 2026), and its title track became aespa’s first UK Official Singles Chart entry at No. 95 (Herald Corp, 2026).
• LEMONADE was also one of the five Album of the Year nominees on Day 1 (StarNews, Nov. 14, 2026).

At Gocheok, they ran through “WDA (Whole Different Animal),” their collaboration with fellow Day 1 winner G-DRAGON, then “Switchblade” and “LEMONADE.”

Melon’s official upload of aespa’s MMA 2026 stage, Nov. 14, 2026.

RESCENE: three trophies, including the fans’ award

RESCENE won Global TOP10, Hot Trend and the KakaoBank Everyone’s Star award. That last one is the sweet one, because it’s the fans’ award: RESCENE finished first in the fan vote (Hankook Ilbo, Nov. 14, 2026). Leader Woni thanked their fandom, RE:MINE, “for always voting so hard,” and said, “We know the love you’re giving us isn’t something to take for granted, so we’ll be a RESCENE that works even harder” (Xports News, Nov. 14, 2026).

That’s almost exactly what they said a week ago at KGMA, where they won Grand Honors’ Choice (our story). It’s adorable that the speech hasn’t changed even as the trophies keep piling up.

The year in numbers

• “LOVE ATTACK,” a 2024 song, finally climbed to No. 1 on Melon in July 2026 (our story).
• Fourth mini album PULSE (Nov. 3, 2026) sold 412,158 copies in four days, a career high, and its title track “With” reached No. 1 on Melon’s Top 100 about two hours after release (Ilgan Sports, Nov. 7, 2026).

183,542 views in about four hours, as of Nov. 14, 2026 (15:40 UTC), one of the most-watched Day 1 stages on Melon’s channel.

Hearts2Hearts: three trophies and the year’s most “RUDE!” hook

Hearts2Hearts matched RESCENE with three trophies: TOP10, Global TOP10 and Global Impact Artist (Hankyung, Nov. 14, 2026). Not bad for a group in its second year.

The year in numbers

• “RUDE!” (Feb. 20, 2026) drew 3.5 million Spotify streams in four days and 37 million MV views in five, and topped QQ Music’s new-song chart (Sports Kyunghyang, Feb. 26, 2026).
• It reached No. 1 on Melon’s HOT100 and No. 2 on the TOP100, and gave them their first music-show win, on Show! Music Core on Mar. 14 (StarNews, Mar. 16, 2026).

The challenge everyone did. “RUDE!” became the No. 1 trending audio on Instagram in Korea and topped YouTube Korea’s trending-music list (StarNews, Mar. 16, 2026). If your feed was full of people doing that bouncy chorus move in March, this is why.

The most-watched Day 1 stage on Melon’s channel at the time of writing: 208,456 views in about four hours (as of Nov. 14, 2026, 15:40 UTC).

RIIZE: Best Performance, a week after Grand Performer

RIIZE won Global TOP10 and shared Best Performance (Male) with ATEEZ (Hankyung, Nov. 14, 2026). It’s their second performance prize in a week, after Grand Performer at KGMA (our story).

The year in numbers

• Their first world tour, RIIZING LOUD, drew 420,000 fans across 21 cities in Asia and North America and made them the fastest K-pop boy group to play Tokyo Dome after debut (Edaily, Mar. 2026).
• Second mini album TWO (“Do your dance”) became their fourth million-seller (Ilgan Sports, Nov. 8, 2026).
• New single “Insomnia” spent seven straight days at No. 1 on Melon’s Global K-Chart (Tenasia, Nov. 2, 2026).

At Gocheok they strung “INSOMNIA,” “Overdrive” and “Do your dance” into one long performance, which is exactly the kind of stage that wins a performance award.

Melon’s official upload, Nov. 14, 2026.

ATEEZ: Best Performance and Hot Trend

ATEEZ shared Best Performance (Male) with RIIZE and also won Hot Trend (Hankyung, Nov. 14, 2026). Six days after their third straight KGMA grand prize (our story), they brought their brand-new title track “UP,” released on Nov. 13 (Top Star News, Nov. 8, 2026), to the Melon stage alongside “Drip” and “BAD.”

The year in numbers

• GOLDEN HOUR : Part.5 debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, their third No. 1, with a career-high 228,000 units (Complex, July 2026).
• It was their sixth album to sell a million copies in its first week (Soompi, 2026).

The challenge everyone did. “BAD” became a challenge before it became a trophy, helped along by a fan meme casting San as the “Northern Grand Duke,” the brooding duke of Korean romance-fantasy web novels (Ilgan Sports, Nov. 8, 2026). The version with TWICE’s Momo on ATEEZ’s official channel passed 25 million views. A group known for intense stages ended up starring in the year’s coziest fandom joke, and they leaned all the way in.

“UP” live for one of the first times, a day after release. Melon’s official upload, Nov. 14, 2026.

I.O.I: two trophies, ten years later

I.O.I won TOP10 and Best Music Style (Hankyung, Nov. 14, 2026), and that sentence still feels unreal to type. The Produce 101 project group stopped promoting in January 2017. For their 10th anniversary in 2026, nine members came back together for the mini album I.O.I : LOOP (May 19, 2026) and a tour that ran from Seoul to Bangkok and Hong Kong, ending June 21 (Money Today, June 23, 2026).

The year in numbers

• New single “Suddenly” (“Gapjagi”) hit No. 1 on both Melon’s TOP100 and HOT100 and won a music-show triple crown (Sports Kyunghyang, July 6, 2026).
• It reached No. 1 on the very day of their first reunion concert, at Jamsil Indoor Stadium on May 29. Jeon Somi, who wrote the song, laughed onstage: “If a drama wrote it like this, people would complain” (My Daily, May 31, 2026).

“Whatta Man” from 2016 next to “Suddenly” from 2026. Melon’s official upload, Nov. 14, 2026.

YENA: Best Solo (Female) and the “Catch Catch” craze

YENA won Best Solo (Female) (Hankyung, Nov. 14, 2026), and if there was one solo challenge you couldn’t escape this year, it was hers.

The year in numbers

• “Catch Catch” peaked at No. 4 on Melon’s TOP100, was still at No. 18 six months later, and passed 100 million Spotify streams on Sept. 30, 2026 (Sports Kyunghyang, Oct. 1, 2026).
• Its MV passed 5.17 million views on Bilibili, the first 2026 K-pop song there to cross 5 million (Sports Kyunghyang, May 6, 2026).

The challenge everyone did. The retro “Catch Catch” dance passed 900 million views on Douyin by May, inspired more than 100,000 YouTube Shorts and reached No. 1 on Korea’s popular Shorts songs list (SBS Star; Tenasia, Apr. 2026). Her own version with aespa’s Karina, who also won on Day 1, is one of the most-watched.

More than 16 million views on YENA’s official channel. She closed her MMA set with “Catch Catch,” after “FIESTA” and “SMILEY.”

TWS and TUIDE: the global newcomers

TWS shared Global Impact Artist with Hearts2Hearts (Hankyung, Nov. 14, 2026). Their 2026 included a February comeback with “Dasi Mannan Oneul” (Mnet M Countdown, Feb. 12, 2026) and a later single, “You, You,” which they performed at Gocheok next to their breakout “OVERDRIVE.”

79,961 views in about three hours, as of Nov. 14, 2026.

TUIDE won Global Rising Artist less than three months after debuting. The seven-member group is the first girl group from ABD, a new HYBE label. Their debut mini album TUNE & PLAY came out with the showcase on Aug. 24, 2026, and the “SUN KISS” MV passed 2.6 million views within 20 hours (Sports Kyunghyang, Aug. 6, 2026; StarNews, Aug. 24, 2026). They performed “SUN KISS” and “GRLS” on Day 1.

Lim Young-woong, G-DRAGON and the OST of the year

Lim Young-woong won Best Solo (Male). He sits at No. 1 on Melon’s all-time cumulative streaming chart, and his first OST, “Love Always Runs Away” (2021), passed 1 billion Melon streams on July 6, 2026 (Sports Kyunghyang, July 7, 2026). His second stadium show, IM HERO THE STADIUM 2, was set for September (Sports Kyunghyang, July 7, 2026).

G-DRAGON took a Global TOP10 trophy. His Übermensch world tour ended in December 2025 with sold-out shows at this same Gocheok Sky Dome and a BIGBANG reunion onstage (Korea Times, Dec. 15, 2025). In April 2026, BIGBANG headlined Coachella’s Outdoor Theatre on both weekends, the slot that was cancelled in 2020 (Sports Kyunghyang, Apr. 10, 2026).

Kim Min-seok of MeloMance won Best OST for “Love Language,” the opening track of Netflix’s Can This Love Be Translated?, starring Kim Seon-ho and Go Youn-jung (Tenasia, Jan. 30, 2026). It came out on Jan. 16, 2026, and it’s the kind of bright, rock-tinged love song that suits a romance about an interpreter and a superstar.

Can This Love Be Translated? streams on Netflix worldwide.

And behind BTS’s album there’s Nicole Kim (Kim Hyun-jung), vice president at BIGHIT MUSIC, who won Best Producer. “Thanks to the members’ passion and hard work, and to the fans who always send so much love, we were able to receive this meaningful honor,” she said (Hankyung, Nov. 14, 2026).

What’s next

• MMA 2026 Day 2 is on November 15 at 6 p.m. KST (4 a.m. ET) at Gocheok Sky Dome, with the remaining three grand prizes still to come.
• MAMA 2026 follows on November 20–21 at Kyocera Dome Osaka.
• BTS’s ARIRANG tour runs through March 2027, RIIZE have promised a second full album next year (Ilgan Sports, Nov. 8, 2026), and ATEEZ’s “UP” is only two days old.

Congratulations to every one of them. I’m already counting down to Day 2.

Sources

• Hankyung (Kim Su-young), “BTS·에스파, ‘MMA 2026’ 첫날 대상…윈터 ‘내년도 기대해 달라’ [종합],” Nov. 14, 2026: https://www.hankyung.com/article/202611146620H
• StarNews, “BTS Wins ‘Album of the Year’ at ‘MMA 2026’.. Absent from Ceremony,” Nov. 14, 2026: https://www.starnewskorea.com/en/music/2026/11/14/2026111422035476268
• Soompi, “Winners Of Melon Music Awards 2026 – DAY 1,” Nov. 14, 2026: https://www.soompi.com/article/1886965wpp/winners-of-melon-music-awards-2026-day-1
• Xports News via Nate, MMA 2026 Day 1 round-up and RESCENE speeches, Nov. 14, 2026: https://m.news.nate.com/view/20261114n13079 , https://m.news.nate.com/view/20261114n10512
• Hankook Ilbo via Nate, “‘MMA’ 리센느, 팬 투표 1위,” Nov. 14, 2026: https://m.news.nate.com/view/20261114n10950
• Newsis via Nate, BTS and aespa at MMA 2026, Nov. 14, 2026: https://m.news.nate.com/view/20261114n13094
• Michigan Public/NPR, Mar. 30, 2026: https://www.michiganpublic.org/2026-03-30/bts-rampages-back-to-the-top-of-the-charts
• Bandwagon: https://www.bandwagon.asia/articles/bts-score-simultaneous-no-1-debut-on-billboard-hot-100-and-200-with-arirang
• Sports Kyunghyang, Sept. 17, 2026 (quadruple-million sellers); Feb. 26, 2026 (Hearts2Hearts): https://sports.khan.co.kr/en/article/202602260909007 ; June 11, 2026 (aespa): https://sports.khan.co.kr/en/article/202606111151007 ; July 6, 2026 (I.O.I): https://sports.khan.co.kr/article/202607061936003 ; Oct. 1 and May 6, 2026 (YENA): https://sports.khan.co.kr/en/article/202605061403007 ; July 7, 2026 (Lim Young-woong): https://sports.khan.co.kr/en/article/202607070726007 ; Apr. 10, 2026 (BIGBANG): https://sports.khan.co.kr/en/article/202604101419007 ; Aug. 6, 2026 (TUIDE): https://sports.khan.co.kr/article/202608060831003
• SBS Star (citing Billboard), June 30, 2026: https://sbsstar.net/article/N1008634531/bts-shatters-records-arirang-world-tour-hits-204-million-milestone-with-60-shows-remaining
• Money Today, Apr. 13, 2026 (BTS in Goyang): https://www.mt.co.kr/entertainment/2026/04/13/2026041309437271149 ; June 23, 2026 (I.O.I): https://www.mt.co.kr/article/2026062310097249938
• Cineplay: https://www.cineplay.co.kr/en-us/articles/28109 ; Herald Corp: https://biz.heraldcorp.com/article/10777684
• StarNews, Mar. 16, 2026 (Hearts2Hearts): https://www.starnewskorea.com/en/music/2026/03/16/2026031610305768680 ; Aug. 24, 2026 (TUIDE): https://www.starnewskorea.com/music/2026/08/24/2026082417152128881
• Ilgan Sports, Nov. 7–8, 2026 (KGMA, RESCENE, RIIZE, ATEEZ); Edaily, Mar. 2026 (RIIZE tour); Tenasia, Nov. 2, 2026 (RIIZE “Insomnia”)
• Complex (ATEEZ): https://www.complex.com/music/a/treyalston/ateez-golden-hour-part-5-billboard-200-number-one ; Soompi (ATEEZ): https://www.soompi.com/article/1851441wpp/ateezs-golden-hour-part-5-becomes-their-6th-album-to-sell-1-million-copies-in-1st-week
• My Daily, May 31, 2026 (I.O.I concert): https://www.mydaily.co.kr/page/view/2026053117511133668
• SBS Star (YENA challenge): https://sbsstar.net/article/N1008548946/yena-retro-dance-craze-takes-over-chinas-shortform-market ; Tenasia: https://www.tenasia.com/amp/2026041514254
• Korea Times, Dec. 15, 2025 (G-DRAGON): https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/amp/entertainment/k-pop/20251215/g-dragons-ubermensch-world-tour-wraps-with-sold-out-seoul-shows-bigbang-reunion
• Tenasia, Jan. 30, 2026 (Kim Min-seok): https://www.tenasia.com/amp/2026013035654
• View counts as shown on YouTube, Nov. 14, 2026 (about 15:40 UTC).

Featured photo: BTS in the Oval Office of the White House, May 31, 2022. Photo: The White House via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.