Confessions on MAMA Awards 2012

Admin K

All the fuss led up to this. Almost 7 hours (according to the live stream when I started watching) of flashing lights, cheers and disappointment. To be honest, I don't think it deserves as much as people make it to be. It definitely didn't leave me completely emotionally invested like some people. The most predominant controversy being the BAP vs EXO-K drama that spanned the last few weeks of voting. In the end, neither of them won that rookie award; leaving both arguing parties disappointed and the bystanders like me, shaking their heads in shame.

This is just one of the many things I plan to rip apart in my section of this article. Probably why this will start with me and end on a happy note.

Firstly the winners list.

Best New Female Artist Ailee	Best New Male Artist Busker Busker
Best Female Artist IU	Best Male Artist G-Dragon
Best Female Group SISTAR	Best Male Group Big Bang
Best Collaboration Performance  Hyuna and Hyunseung - Trouble Maker	Best OST Seo In Guk & Jung Eun Ji - All for You (Reply 1997)
Best Music Video PSY - Gangnam Style	Best Rap Performance Epik High - Up
Best Band Performance Busker Busker - Cherry Blossom Ending	Best Dance Performance – Solo PSY - Gangnam Style
Best Dance Performance – Male Group SHINee – Sherlock	Best Dance Performance  – Female Group f(x) - Electric Shock
Best Vocal Performance – Solo K.Will - I need you	Best Vocal Performance – Group Davichi - Will Think of You
Best Global Group – Female KARA	Best Global Group – Male Super Junior
SONG OF THE YEAR PSY - Gangnam Style	ARTIST OF THE YEAR Big Bang
BEST ASIAN ARTIST Wang Leehom Philippines: Sarah Geronimo Japan: AKB48 Vietnam: My Tam Indonesia: Agnes Monica Singapore: Taufik Batisah China: Li Yuchun	ALBUM OF THE YEAR Sexy Free & Single – SUPER JUNIOR
	best new asian artist New Asian Artist Group - EXO China: TimeZ Thailand: Natthew
Mnet PD’s Choice Award B.A.P.	BEST NEW ASIAN ARTIST EXO
International/Global Favorite Artist Psy	Style in Music Ga In of Brown Eyed Girls
Guardian Angel Worldwide Performer Award Big Bang	Best Line Award Super Junior

No surprise that PSY won so many of the awards. Gangnam Style rightly deserves Song of the Year for making such a big impact on the global music market. But as I was watching it, I couldn't help but guess the winners to practically all the prizes near the end of the ceremony. Why? Well this is just a theory I had formulated from ideas I read from other people as the ceremony was airing. It seems like MNET tried to make sure everyone who attended left with an award. That would account for some of the awards that I have never heard of before being awarded. It fits together quite nicely once you look at the nominations for the awards that were voted on by fans and then look at the awards that were given that didn't have a fan voting contribution. Just a theory. No bashing. I've just always believed these awards reflected the power of established fandoms and marketing (add in a little bias from the organisers?) rather than true quality of music. Of course, there were many on this extensive list that I think deserved their awards very much.

 

On to the performances. For making me sit down for so long, the performances had to be good. To be honest, I didn't watch all of them. As I said, seven hours is a long time. EXO and SHINee's performance did give me a slight heart attack from too many feels (maybe a little biased there) but looking at it objectively, the purpose was a "time skip". It looked pretty biased to me. H.O.T, TVXQ, SHINee? It's looking more like an SM promo than nostalgia (though I am not denying that SM has been very popular in the past). Other personal favorites were the obvious epic Epik High and the explosive Big Bang (puns fully intended :P). I also thoroughly enjoyed Roy Kim's performance. I've never heard of him prior to this, but I definitely liked his vocals. Though Seo In Young's English pronunciation didn't cut it for me, K.Will's did. OMG. Just a quick comment on the Troublemaker performance (second MAMA version). Was it just me or did it just get to a new level of sexual that I thought never existed?  Conservative me coming through

 

Being the stagecraft critic that I am, I have to say that the lighting and sound in this year's ceremony was pretty good. There were times where I picked up sound that was probably from the backstage crew's communication devices but I forgive them. Camera-work was good. Not too jumpy or lagged. Angles were ok. Being a live show though, sometimes the camera did miss some things that I wanted to see through panning to the idol pit (as I called it) or simply shooting from another angle.

Anyway, I think I've ranted enough. I'll leave some for the others. Overall, liked the ceremony but it was very long and sometimes grueling to get through. I won't even go into MNET Global's live Twitter commentary. EUGHHH.... Don't get me started.

Admin S

Ok hi. My turn~

First of all, I sat and watched the entire 7 hours of the stream (screaming at my family occasionally to stop talking to me because I was busy) but I have to admit, I was actually very disappointed in MAMA this year.

Can I just say how annoyingly unprofessional and obnoxious the English MC's were?

They basically didn't know anything or anyone and proceeded to diss the entire of Troublemaker's performance and Epik High's costume.

Then they said something along the lines of:

"Oh. I really liked that one dress that was short at the front and long at the back. I think that was very nice"

"Oh, did you mean Ga In?"

"Was that her? Yeah. I think so. Ga In."


 

o.m.g.

As MC's of a very important event, you would think to at least commit names to memory and avoid being sarcastic towards the idols.

Moving on from the pretty disappointing and somewhat offensive commentary,

I pretty much tuned in at the very start (although I skipped "The History of MAMA" because gawddddd. that was boring). 
The red carpet was quite interesting and I actually enjoyed looking at the fashion and was super delighted by the surprise performances of both B.A.P and Block B (OMG. BLOCKBAP. MY FEELS).

 

 

  

 

The standouts on the red carpet (for me) were:

B.A.P

Lee Hi

f(x) (omgggg. amber *blubbering mess of incoherent noises*)

Park Shin Hye

Song Joong Ki

Ga In

Block B (so much win omg)

Seo In Young

Wooyoung

Bai Bai He (my favourite of the night)



On to the actual ceremony...

Was anyone else confused about the second award?? (Presented by Simon and PSY's first award of the night)

There was no mention of what the award was or who the nominee's were.

Judging by the look on his face, PSY was pretty darned confused too.

I'm disappointed that MNET did not provide any explanation to this...

The night went on and to be honest, the winners of the awards were quite predictable.

Except Best Female Global Group.

Wtf. How did Kara win that?? They were the least likely of all the nominees (in my opinion).

I still wonder how 2NE1, f(x) and Sistar didn't cinch that one...

[ADMIN K: Evidence to my theory up top]

But the most shocking, disappointing, annoying, unhappy and angry feels I had to an award winner was Busker Busker (not that they're not good and I don't like them. No hate, ok?)

I know that only 20% of the results come from voting but the other 80% is made up of album sales and a judging panel.

Sorry, call me biased but I really, seriously don't think that Busker Busker could've surpassed Exo or B.A.P at album sales...

It seem like MNET just gave it to them to avoid a fanwar between Exotics and Babyz (fried tofuz). I think they just made it worse though? Because both sides came away angry and annoyed and disappointed.

What got me the most though, was that they didn't bother to announce the winner on the live stream but through their Twitter instead...

As for the actual performances,they were actually... quite disappointing and not as good as last year's (in my opinion).

G-Dragon's opening rap was fabulous and amazing and I died so hard because it was perfect.

But then Ailee, Bang Yong Guk and PIA took the stage and honestly... I hated it.

I really really loved Epik High's performance and of course Big Bang's because seriously GD, how did you do that to your hair in less than 2 hours??
And T.O.P, your eyes.  

Yeah how did this...

 

Become this in 2 hours ?

 

(On a side note, since GD was shirtless under that big, red coat, it's confirmed that his tummy tattoo from Crayon is real)

And then Troublemaker was just... yeah...I'm not even sure what was going on there.

I really didn't like B.O.B and Seo In Young's performance of Airplanes (you would've thought to get someone with a high enough vocal range and who was fluent in English?)

Like Admin K said, there were quite a few awards that didn't really make sense to me (what's a Line Award? and a Guardian Angel Worldwide Performer Award??) and there were a few winners I was quite unhappy with and thought they didn't deserve it and I was quite sad that many bands didn't make the nominations stage (Nu'Est, BtoB, C-Clown etc etc etc etc etc.) but I'd like to congratulate everyone, nonetheless.