K-pop award season becomes confusing the moment you try to apply a simple first-place, second-place system to it.
One artist wins a daesang. Then another daesang is announced. Several artists receive bonsangs. At another ceremony, the word bonsang barely appears at all.
The easiest explanation — “daesang is first place, bonsang is second place” — is also the one most likely to mislead you.
Daesang means a grand prize or top-tier award. Bonsang refers to a main prize awarded to multiple qualifying artists or releases at ceremonies that use that structure. But MAMA, the Melon Music Awards and the Golden Disc Awards do not operate as three branches of one K-pop league.
A daesang is a top-level award. A bonsang is a major main prize, usually given to several winners. The exact relationship between them depends on the ceremony. Different K-pop awards use different data, categories and voting systems.
Why can one ceremony have several daesangs?
Because “Grand Prize” does not always mean one final trophy for the entire night.
A ceremony may recognize Artist of the Year, Song of the Year and Album of the Year as separate top prizes.
The 40th Golden Disc Awards, held in January 2026, had three daesang categories: Digital Song Daesang, Album Daesang and Artist Daesang.
This makes sense once you stop asking who “won K-pop” and start asking what kind of achievement is being rewarded.
The year’s strongest digital song, strongest album and most important artist do not have to be the same act.
Bonsang is not simply the runner-up trophy
At Golden Disc, several artists or releases can receive Digital Song or Album Bonsangs.
Those are significant awards in their own right.
A daesang sits at the highest level, but it is misleading to describe every bonsang winner as someone who “lost” the grand prize.
Other ceremonies structure their awards differently again.
MAMA does not organize its entire show around a Golden Disc-style bonsang ladder. MMA uses categories including TOP10 and several major year-end awards.
The Korean terms are useful. The rules of the particular ceremony are more useful.
MMA reflects Melon because it is the Melon Music Awards
This sounds obvious, but it explains many fan arguments.
For MMA 2025, TOP10, Artist of the Year, Album of the Year and Best Song of the Year were calculated using 60 percent digital performance, 20 percent judging and 20 percent voting.
Record of the Year was judged differently, using 100 percent expert evaluation.
This means winning a fan vote cannot automatically guarantee one of the major awards.
It also means an artist with especially strong performance on Melon can enter MMA with an advantage that may not appear in exactly the same way at another ceremony.
Golden Disc starts from a different data base
Golden Disc says it gives the greatest weight to album sales and digital music performance, combined with evaluation by music-industry experts.
For the 40th ceremony, Circle Music Chart was the official data source.
It also separated Digital Song, Album and Artist daesangs.
That structure is not identical to MMA’s.
So if two ceremonies produce different major winners, it does not necessarily mean one result is suspicious. They may be measuring different things.
MAMA adds another set of priorities
MAMA has its own categories and methodology.
Recent editions have combined judging, streaming and download data, physical sales and fan voting in different proportions depending on the award.
A fan-vote category can be heavily driven by voting. Song of the Year is not necessarily calculated the same way. Album of the Year is not necessarily calculated the same way either.
That is why “our fandom won the vote” is not, by itself, an answer to every MAMA result.
The 2026 ceremony is scheduled for November 20–21 in Osaka. Final 2026 category methodology should be checked once the ceremony publishes its current criteria rather than copied from the previous year.
Why award results can disagree without contradicting one another
Consider three artists.
One dominates Korean streaming. Another sells enormous numbers of physical albums. A third has a broad mix of domestic and global performance.
Different award systems can reward those strengths differently.
This is not unique to K-pop. What makes K-pop confusing is the number of major ceremonies and the way Korean category terms travel into English without their institutional context.
Which award matters most?
There is no official ranking that settles that question.
History matters. The artist matters. The fandom matters.
A first daesang can become a career milestone regardless of ceremony. A digital-focused award may carry particular meaning for an artist known for public-listening strength. An album daesang can matter enormously to a group whose fandom has built its commercial power through physical sales.
The better way to read K-pop award season is not to count trophies before understanding them.
Look first at the category, then the data and judging system behind it.
Only then does “daesang” tell you what was actually won.
Sources
- Golden Disc Awards — 40th awards categories and judging criteria
- Melon Music Awards — official award criteria
Dessert — two more sides of Korea
TWICE — Feel Special
A polished K-pop stage-world reset after the numbers and judging systems.
Bukchon to Insadong
A slower Seoul sequence after the speed of award-season statistics.
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