Melon has opened voting for the 18th Melon Music Awards (MMA2026), revealing the nominees across 12 categories and setting up a grand-prize race led by BTS, AKMU, I.O.I, IVE, ILLIT, KiiiKiii, and CORTIS. Voting runs through November 13, with the ceremony scheduled for November 14 and 15 at Seoul’s Gocheok Sky Dome, KakaoBank as title sponsor.
The seven acts are the only ones nominated for all three grand prizes: KakaoBank Album of the Year, Artist of the Year, and Best Song of the Year. Winners in most categories will be decided by chart performance (60 percent), judges’ scores (20 percent), and fan votes (20 percent), while the TrackZero Choice award weights judges’ scores at 60 percent. Results from the earlier TOP10 vote, held October 15 to 29, will also feed into the Artist of the Year decision.
Each frontrunner arrives with a chart story, according to Melon’s announcement, reported by Sports Kyunghyang. BTS topped the Melon TOP100 within an hour of releasing “SWIM,” the title track of its fifth album “ARIRANG,” with all 14 album tracks entering the TOP100. AKMU scored back-to-back No. 1s with “Joy, Sorrow, Beautiful Mind” and “Paradise of Rumors.” I.O.I, reunited after nearly nine years, topped both the TOP100 and HOT100 with “Suddenly.”
IVE’s February pre-release “BANG BANG” hit No. 1 immediately and topped the weekly chart, while ILLIT’s “It’s Me” peaked at No. 2 with a long upper-chart run. KiiiKiii’s “404 (New Era)” was the first song released in 2026 to reach No. 1 and led the daily chart for 12 straight days, and CORTIS held a monthly-chart top-three spot for five straight months with “REDRED.”
Elsewhere, aespa’s “LEMONADE” and YENA’s “Catch Catch” earned Album and Best Song nominations, while last year’s Rookie of the Year winner Hearts2Hearts returned as an Artist of the Year and Best Song nominee with “RUDE!” The Rookie of the Year race features SYSTEM SEOUL, HADES, ALPHA DRIVE ONE, LNGSHOT, and TUIDE, and the Global TOP10 field spans legends such as BIGBANG, G-Dragon, and EXO alongside BLACKPINK, SEVENTEEN, TWICE, and Stray Kids.
This year’s ceremony is the first in MMA history to expand to two shows, staged under the slogan “K-POP CONNECT: The New Pulse” and streamed worldwide via Melon, Wavve, U-NEXT, TVBS42, CATCHPLAY+, 1theK, and Melon’s YouTube channel. No artist statements were included in the announcement coverage. Winners will be revealed live across the two nights in mid-November.
