NewJeans wins 2 grand prizes at 2023 Melon Music Awards

Rookie K-pop girl group NewJeans won five prizes at this year’s Melon Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Best Song of the Year, on Saturday.

The K-pop quintet was the biggest winner of the 2023 Melon Music Awards (MMA 2023) hosted by South Korea’s largest music streaming platform Melon, followed by two other K-pop groups, NCT Dream and Ive.

This year’s edition was notably held at Inspire Arena on Incheon’s Yeongjong Island, which opened last month to be Korea’s first arena dedicated to music performances.

NewJeans claimed Artist of the Year and Best Song of the Year for its hit single “Ditto”, two of the big four awards in the ceremony, marking a remarkable milestone for the group just one year and four months after its debut.

“Bunnies, thank you so much,” NewJeans said in its acceptance speech, referring to the name of the group’s fandom. “We’re so honored and grateful to receive so many great awards at this one ceremony. We don’t know what to say, but we feel like we need to repay you by growing and showing you even better sides of ourselves in the future.”

In addition to winning the two grand prizes, the group was also named Best Group (Female) and among the winners of the Top 10 Artists and Millions Top 10 Albums.

Debuting in July 2022 under ADOR, a newly-founded music label under Hybe, NewJeans has grown to be one of the biggest names in K-pop with its hits, such as “Attention,” “Ditto,” “OMG,” “Hype Boy” and “ETA.”

The group also proved its current status by clinching the Artist of the Year and Song of the Year awards, two of the four main honors, at the 2023 MAMA Awards held earlier this week.

The remaining two grand prizes of the MMA 2023 went to Ive and NCT Dream.

Ive won Album of the Year for its first full-length album, “I’ve Ive,” while NCT Dream took home Record of the Year, an award given to an act and its producer who have achieved the most notable musical achievement of the year.

The boy group also received Best Group (Male) and one of the Top 10 Artists and Millions Top 10 Albums awards.

Other notable wins include the Best Solo Artist, which were won by rapper Lee Young-ji and BTS vocalist Jungkook in the male and female categories, respectively.

American singer-songwriter Charlie Puth was named Best Pop Artist while New Artist of the Year was shared by Zerobaseone and Riize.

The seven other acts chosen for the Top 10 Artists were Le Sserafim, BTS, Seventeen, (G)I-dle, aespa, Lim Young-woong and Jungkook.