On August 30, 2018, Soribada held a music award show to honor the artists of Kpop industry.
Here are the award winners -
The artists who have won the awards are more deserving of the title, and KTruth conveys hearty wishes to the winners.
But, we need to look into the other side of the story as well.
Fans of various bases has expressed frustration and disappointment over the unfair treatment Soribada showed towards artists like EXO, iKon, G-IDLE and Black pink.
As announced by Soribada,
- Songs and albums released during the period from September 2017 to August 2018 are considered for the awards.
- The winning criteria for the awards are 50% (streaming and download), 30% voting, 20% (Steering committee and experts).
- Voting was conducted for two months (July-Aug).
EXO, the world famous boy band released albums - The War: The Power of Music and Universe during the said eligible period. Both the albums had ranked number #1 position in Korean music charts for weeks and also in world music charts. Hence EXO was nominated for the Bonsang award. They secured top position in voting(30%) and in streaming(50%) as well, which fulfilled 80% of the award criteria more than any nominated artists, yet Soribada has denied the rightfully deserved award to EXO.
Multiple artists were awarded for bonsang except EXO, even after fulfilling and in fact topping the criteria. This has shocked the EXOLs, the huge fan base in the world.
iKON released the album Return on January 25, 2018 with lead single "Love Scenario".
The album charted at No.2 on the Gaon Album Chart and secured 4th position on Billboard World Albums and 12 on Top Heatseekers albums. "Love Scenario" topped China's QQ Music's real time chart and weekly chart. Also the song made a huge record by charting at top position for six weeks in Gaon Weekly Chart in South Korea.
Yet, Soribada has failed to recognize iKON for their achievements either.
BlackPink, the top trending girl band release the album Square Up on June 15, 2018. The band soared to the sky making and breaking several achievements. Square Up was the most viewed K-pop video in first 24 hours (36.2 million views). Black Pink achieved a Gaon Quadruple Crown by being #1 on 4 Gaon charts. (Digital, Download, Streaming & Mobile). They are the first girl group to achieve this and 1 of only 5 artists to ever do it , and also the first Korean girl group to have two #1 albums on the iTunes world wide Album Chart. Yet the unfair treatment. There are hints that this could be due to problems between the YG entertainment and Soribada.
G-IDLE, made their debut on May 2, 2018 with their mini album I Am, with the lead single "Latata". I Am debuted at number seven in Billboard's World Albums chart and peaked to number five. Their first digital single comeback, "Hann" topped domestic music charts including Bugs, Genie and Olleh music and hit new peak on Billboard's World Digital Song Sales chart where they debuted at No. 2. The rookie group has done exceptionally well.
Fans has expressed that Korean music award shows are becoming more and more rigged and using not just the emotion of fans but also the money and time of the fans for the popularity and reach for the show. "Robbed" is the word fans are using for the unfair treatment showed towards their idols. Fans also expressed that they felt like being played and fooled after having to have voted for their favorite artist in Soribada for two months straight.
But, come to think of it, KTruth would like to raise following questions to all the Korean music award shows -
1. The concept of voting is to find how many agrees and disagrees, right? The voting should be taken only one time per person, right? Then what is the logic behind letting people vote every day using the same account? Is the motive really to find the number of people agree/disagree or to increase the popularity of your award show?
2. Why changing rules and criteria of an award at the last minute?
3. What is Internal data?
4. And last question is, Can you boldly reveal the vote, stream, judges data to the public while announcing the awards?
KTruth hopes to find answers for these questions some day.
Facts Only,
The KTruth
Comments