If there’s the Grammy Award in the U.S., there’s the Mnet ASIAN MUSIC AWARDS (MAMA) in Korea. The path MAMA has taken as the sole global-scale awards ceremony in Korea for popular music is in line with K-pop, which has become a global phenomenon in terms of its history. Today, we’ll explore MAMA’s past and the present and how it has recorded K-pop’s growth and potential that has now gone beyond borders to sweep the world.
MAMA at the Heart of Korean Music Scene
The history of popular music appears to be dotted with mere success and trend, but this is only what it looks from outside. If you look deeper, you’ll find records and celebrations at the foundation of the music industry. Through that, popular music secures its context and continuity as a part of culture and as an industry. This becomes clearer when you study the case of the U.S., the birthplace of modern pop music.
The power of American pop music, which has not let go of its leadership role in global pop music for over a century, lies not just in the collective talent of the artists, or in the money and power of those who nurture them. On the one hand, the Billboard chart and the certification system of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) objectively measures the popularity of pop music and accumulates the record. On the other hand, museums of pop music and hall of fame archive their legacy to create continuity from the past and the present. Award ceremonies like the Grammy Awards and American Music Awards celebrate and honor the industry’s own achievements to grant authority to those who win as being music legends who lead the world.
It is perhaps the lack of groundwork that supports the framework holding up pop music and the industry I mentioned above makes us feel that K-pop falls behind in terms of internal stability compared to its fame as a phenomenon that has captivated the world. This is regrettable when you think of the current status of Korean pop music, which has around 70 years of history.
In that regard, MAMA is an extraordinary event that celebrates the present status of Korean pop music, or K-pop, as it attracts ever more worldwide attention and writes the history of K-pop. It is not just a commercial event held by broadcasting company Mnet, it is an awards ceremony that has stood by the global K-pop scene since its beginning. So, you cannot underestimate the significance of MAMA.
Rise of K-pop and MAMA on Global Stage
There are many awards in Korean pop music industry, but three of them stand out the most as the most prestigious. One is the Korean Music Awards (KMA), which honors artistic accomplishments regardless of the commercial success of the music as led by critics, journalists, and academics. In some sense, KMA may seem similar to the Grammy Awards as hosted by the Recording Academy, but it is in fact closer to the Critics Choice Awards in the film industry as music insiders are not involved in the selection process.
The leading awards in terms of tradition and continuity are the Golden Disc Awards (GDA). It not only has a long history, it is also widely recognized by industry insiders as winners are selected based on an object index of the volume of albums sold.
Last but not least is MAMA. Following its predecessor, the Mnet Music Video Festival, which was held in 1999, MAMA boasts 22 long years of history, and it is the only global awards in the Korean pop music industry. Moreover, MAMA is the largest event in the music industry of the 21st century, the so-called ‘K-pop era.’ It outpaces the competition by an overwhelming margin when it comes to global recognition.
MAMA has clearly demonstrated superb performance: It offers an intuitive view of 20 years of global K-pop history at a glance. The onset of MAMA perfectly overlaps with the birth of the word K-pop, which was around early 2000s. This was when Korean pop music was making its transition into becoming a completely new industry that pursued a dream of going global.
The shift is apparent when you look at the winners of the Grand Prize. When you look at the direction that K-pop has taken in its path to achieve globalization over the past 20 years, K-pop only enjoyed limited popularity in Korea and Southeast Asia up until the mid-2000s. In 2007 and 2008, K-pop faced an important turning point and started to expand its influence in Europe and North America with the rise of Big Bang and Wonder Girls
This shift is accurately reflected in MAMA’s Grand Prize honorees of the same period. Delving deeper, it is accompanied by an internal factor, the K-pop industry becoming more sophisticated than the past, and an external factor, increased touchpoints with global listeners with the rise of new media. The training and music production system of K-pop, which has developed rapidly since the mid-1990s, reached a high level of maturity by mid 2000s as is evident in the 2nd generation boy and girl bands. This level of quality coincides with the introduction of YouTube in 2005, pushing the K-pop industry higher.
A Milestone that Reflects the Success and the Potential of K-Pop
Building on these shifts, K-pop gained the attention of the world market between 2010 and 2013, bringing about a fundamental change to its status on the global stage. Psy, who used to be a local star, redefined K-pop in the global pop music market with the phenomenal success of Gangnam Style, while Super Junior enjoyed the prime of their career with hit songs, Sorry Sorry and Mr. Simple. They spread the wave of so-called K-pop hook songs from East Asia, through Southeast Asia, to Europe and to the Americas, successfully widening the horizon of K-pop. In addition, Girls’ Generation, which dominated the Japanese market, made their official debut in the US, demonstrating the outcome of the sophisticated K-pop idol system right in front of the eyes of American public. This was a fresh shock to a nation that is considered as being the home of pop music, and saw America’s mainstream media start paying more attention to the new culture of K-pop.
This was also the time when EXO rose to stardom and dominated the market with the largest fandom in the history of global K-pop. They won the Album of the Year awards for five consecutive years and ushered in the return of the million seller era in the K-pop scene. This was when K-pop finally acquired its global status based on quantity, and the size and influence of the industry.
Around this time, the mainstream music market of the world also began showing genuine interest in K-pop, which is also when MAMA began moving it’s venue to global locations. In particular, the scope of the awards was expanded from K-pop to world or Asian artists in 2010. Since 2013, new categories have been added to award artists from six Asian countries to reinvent MAMA into the Asian Music Awards. This illustrates how MAMA led the change in the status of K-pop industry from being a follower to becoming a leader.
Starting in 2016, K-pop reached another important inflection point, namely BTS, another phenomenon that has gone well beyond K-pop. They have dominated the Artist of the Year award from MAMA since 2016 and their status does not seem to be at any risk of diminishing. This is an unprecedented, long-term victory in the history of MAMA.
What is worth noting is the possibility of there being a new way to succeed for K-pop, rather being just a success of a single boy band. Before BTS, K-pop gained popularity first in nearby East Asia or Southeast Asia and then moved on to the global world. It was a step-by-step process. However, BTS rose to immediate global stardom in North America, South America and Europe based on a powerful fan base named Army. Not only that, their success in the US, not Korea, acted as a catalyst for their global success indicating that change is happening in the current local and global categorization of K-pop.
Young-dae Kim is a music critic and a writer and has a PhD in musicology from Washington University. He has written feature articles on music reviews for news media both in Korea and abroad including Vulture, MTV, and Hankyoreh. He analyzes K-pop in interviews with major US news outlets like NPR, NBC, and Washington Post, and by appearing on Korean TV and radio shows. He is currently working as a member of the review committee for Mnet Music Awards and the Korean Music Awards. He is also an author of Idols as Artists in the K-pop Era.
