The MCs of the night were INFINITE'S Woohyun, B2ST's Gikwang, Moon Hee Jun and Danny Ahn.
First off, I think they did a spectacular job running the whole event (even though I don't understand most of what they said)...
The line up for the performances were:
Simon D, Rhythm Power & Dynamic Duo
K.Will feat. INFINITE's Dongwoo and Hoya
B.A.P
T-Ara
INFINITE
SISTAR
Nell
Ailee and Huh Gak
2NE1
B2ST
WOW. Ok, first of all, AMAZING. SO GOOD. Seriously enjoyed it, much much better than MAMA.
INFINITE, SISTAR and B2ST left my jaw hanging. My three favourite performances of the night.
Honestly, I thought all the stages were amazing and well thought out and interesting.
Except... T-Ara's... I'm not sure what their concept was or if the song choice was bad? But I was really bored and uninterested in their performance and actually swapped tabs to Tumblr to see what was going on there. Actually, the other idols looked pretty bored too.
I loved SISTAR's little video skit at the start. Creative, relevant and oh, so sexy! (unfortunately the skit is not shown the the video above). And 2NE1!!! Omfg. I actually like near cried during their red carpet. I haven't seen them in sooooo long and damnnn Bom. So hot, you make me tear ;___;
Ailee and Huh Gak's collaboration was beautiful as well.
The list of award winners of the MelOn Awards 2012 are:
Artist of The Year - B2ST
Album of The Year - Busker Busker
Song Of The Year - PSY (Gangnam Style)
2012 Top 10 Artists - B2ST
SISTAR Huh Gak 2NE1
INFINITE
PSY
T-Ara
Big Bang
IU
Busker Busker
Best New Artist - B.A.P
Global Star Award - PSY
2012 Netizen Popularity Award - B2ST
2012 Hot Trend - Troublemaker
Best OST - A-Pink's Eun Ji & Seo In Guk
Best Rock - Nell
Best Rap/Hip Hop - Dynamic Duo
Best R&B/Ballad - K.Will
2012 MBC Music Star Award - Super Junior's Shindong & Kim Shin Young of "Show Champion"
2012 Songwriter Award - Duble Sidekick
Can I just mentioned that I noticed that there was not one JYP nor SM artist (besides Shindong) present at MelOn?
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.
PUMP UP THE VOLUME UP UP vs WITHOUT YOU I'M FALLING DOWN
4minute - Volume Up Tracklist:
1. Get On The Floor
2. Volume Up
3. I’m OK
4. Say My Name
5. Femme Fatale
6. Dream Racer
7. Black Cat
SISTAR - Alone Tracklist:
1. Come Close
2. Alone
3. No Mercy
4. Lead Me
5. Girls on Top
6. I choose to Love You
7. Alone (ins.)
Wow, the k-pop stage is seriously awesome at the moment! I mean, we have EXO, Sistar, Shinhwa, SHINee, B1A4, BtoB, CNBLUE, NU'EST, 4minute, Nell and so many more; what a great time to go to Korea!
Okay to begin with, let me just say that I seriously loved Volume Up a billion times more than Alone. It was just visually amazing, giving similar vibes to Miss A's Touch. I love the wardrobe department and the whole vampiric-goddess-angel-demon concept of it all. Although 90% of it was Hyuna and there are substantial amounts of high ear-piercing screaming (gratitude to Jiyoon), it is seriously adictive and something haunting about it all; I just freaking love it!
There isn't really any distinctive choreo in htis besides this lesbian moment:
I can't even put my feelings of this into words..
Anywho, I felt that Jihyun really stood out to me for the first time. She is so pretty in this!
And Sohyun's long hair was UH-mazing!
The only bits which I didn't like was Hyuna's fast-talking / rapping sections. It just deflated the whole gist of the song. But Jiyoon really deserves a medal for all her screaming; really commendable!
Okay let's talk about Alone. All honest truth, I instantly hated it. It was all Hyorin which made me think why does Dasom bother carrying a mic?? But in saying that, after the first 5 seconds, I felt like was watching porn or something really inappropriate. My first thoughts was that their concept were 'hookers', which would have been incredibly awkward, but would explain the choreo. Get the picture?
I bet the sexy leg lifts are going to be a popular K-pop move now =.="
This song is slowly growing on me, but the biased me prefers 4minute. Mind you, I cringe at every live performances of Alone, solely because I fear one of them will break their leg or something whilst doing that move up there ^
