Hanteo Music Awards 2024: SEVENTEEN emerges victorious, while NewJeans – Jisoo leaves empty-handed

On the evening of February 18, 2024, the Hanteo Music Awards concluded its two-night award ceremony with many notable highlights. As one of the major annual award ceremonies, this year’s Hanteo Music Awards noted the absence of many popular stars on the red carpet. Prominent stars from the past year such as SEVENTEEN, NewJeans, IVE, Stray Kids, among others, were all absent. After the completion of the second award night, the winners of the important categories were announced. Some were convincing to the audience, but there were also many controversial issues.

SEVENTEEN, Stray Kids emerge victorious; NewJeans misses out on Daesang

With diligent activities and achieving many milestones in the past year, it’s not surprising that SEVENTEEN and Stray Kids swept the year-end award ceremonies. The “million-seller boy group” once again secured the Daesang for their mini-album Seventeenth Heaven, winning the Best Album category at the Hanteo Music Awards. SEVENTEEN also took home 1 Bonsang Artist of the Year award.

Meanwhile, Stray Kids was named for the Daesang Best Performance and Bonsang Artist of the Year. Despite their big wins, both groups did not attend this year’s award ceremony.

Notably, at this year’s Hanteo Music Awards, NewJeans was nearly “empty-handed” despite their popularity. Min Hee Jin’s girl group won the Bonsang Artist of the Year award but missed out on the Daesang. IVE, with their song “I AM,” won the Daesang for Best Song even though NewJeans had secured 7 Daesangs at previous award ceremonies.

Although Ditto was not eligible for an award due to its release at the end of 2022, NewJeans still had a highly successful comeback with the E.P. “Get Up” and the mega-hit “Super Shy.” Despite dominating the music charts for weeks and achieving a Perfect All-Kill, even being named one of the best songs of 2023 by various top magazines, NewJeans surprisingly missed out on awards at the domestic award ceremony, leaving fans feeling unconvinced.

Jisoo (BLACKPINK) left empty-handed

The subsidiary categories of the Hanteo Music Awards 2024 continued to stir controversy due to unclear criteria and the confusing distribution of awards. From previous seasons, the category system of the Hanteo Music Awards has been criticized for its “award-splitting” nature. For instance, the Global Artist category was divided into regions, and V, Jimin, and TXT were named winners separately, although they could have been combined into one category. Some awards seemed puzzling like the Best Trend Leader given to aespa or the Global Outstanding Artist awarded to NMIXX. These awards lacked clear criteria and standards, leaving the audience feeling unconvinced.

In addition, the criterion set by Hanteo that one group/artist cannot win two awards, even if they win all the voting boards, was interpreted by the audience as another way of splitting awards, ensuring each group wins only one award. However, prominent artists of the past year like Jisoo (BLACKPINK) remained “invisible” in all categories of the Hanteo Music Awards. Despite being an award from a disc distributor, Jisoo was still “snubbed” despite her record-breaking solo female artist debut mini-album.

NCT Dream’s Daesang sparks controversy

Once again, NCT Dream found themselves caught in the storm of criticism for “winning Dealsang.” At this year’s Hanteo Music Awards, the third-generation boy group from SM Entertainment won the Daesang for Best Artist. In terms of achievements, this result continues to be unconvincing. Compared to NewJeans, IVE, or aespa from the same company, NCT Dream was not particularly outstanding in the music scene over the past year. Insisting on letting NCT Dream take the Daesang despite their lack of prominence led to public backlash against SM Entertainment.

After the Daesang at the Seoul Music Awards (SMA) and the Melon Music Awards (MMA), now at Hanteo, NCT Dream has become the “national scapegoat,” with the public becoming disillusioned with the staged awards. This not only affects the artists but also diminishes the credibility of the awards in the eyes of the public.

Below is the full list of 31st Hanteo Music Awards winners.

Daesang Best Artist: NCT DREAM

Daesang Best Song: “I AM” by IVE

Daesang Best Performance: Stray Kids

Daesang Best Album: SEVENTEEN’s “F.M.L”

Bonsang Artist of the Year: aespa, Stray Kids, LE SSERAFIM, ATEEZ, (G)I-DLE, TXT, BTS’s Jungkook, IVE, ZB1, SEVENTEEN, ENHYPEN, NCT 127, NCT DREAM, BTS’s Jimin, BTS’s V, NewJeans

Rookie of the Year: tripleS, ZB1

Global Generation Icon: aespa

Global Rising Artist: KISS OF LIFE

Best Trend Leader: aespa

Next Worldwide Artist: RIIZE

Top Global Performer: ATEEZ

Global Artist: BTS’s Jimin & V, TXT

Global Outstanding Artist: NMIXX

Emerging Artist: VIVIZ, TEMPEST

Popular Global Group: Kep1er

Popular Performance Group: VIVIZ

Popular Solo Artist: Jung Dong Won

Popular Band Artist: Daybreak

Favorite Vocal Performance: Kim Jae Hwan

Favorite Band Performance: LUCY

Favorite Crossover Group: Libelante

Legend Rock Icon: YB

Hanteo-Choice K-POP: VANNER, Billlie

Blooming Star: JUST B

Blooming Performance Group: 8Turn

Post Generation: Lee Chan Won

Special Award – Band: Xdinary Heroes

Special Award – Virtual Artist: PLAVE

Special Award – Trot: Young Tak

Special Award – Ballad: Parc Jae Jung

Whosfandom Award: Lim Young Woong