IU Shares Her Gratitude For Winning Two Daesangs At 1st Melon Music Awards Appearance In 4 Years

On December 4, the Melon Music Awards 2021 (MMA 2021) took place, awarding the four Daesangs (Grand Prizes) to IU, BTS, and aespa.

For IU, this was her first appearance at the Melon Music Awards in four years. She last appeared in 2017, when she won Album of the Year, Best Songwriter, and Top 10 Artists (Bonsang).

At MMA 2021, IU improved that record to take home a total of five awards: not only Album of the Year, Best Songwriter, and the Top 10 Bonsang again, but also Album of the Year and Best Solo (Female). Two of those awards were Daesangs: Album of the Year and Artist of the Year.

In her speech for Artist of the Year, IU said, “I have received such a big award. Artist of the Year is an award with a lot of weight. A lot of artists worked hard and did their best this year, but I am receiving this award alone, so I feel a sense of gratitude toward the other artists. I will carry the weight of this award and channel it into working hard at making music next year. Artists, you all worked hard this year.”

She continued, “We’re in a situation where we can allow small audiences again. If we wait a little longer, the day will come when we can shout, ‘Make some noise,’ and we can scream and cheer, and tell people face-to-face, ‘You’re beautiful.'” Next year, I want to meet more people from a closer distance. Because Uaena [fan club name] was here today, I was able to feel like I really got an award. Uaenas, I got five trophies, are you proud? I’m glad that I can make Uaenas’ shoulders stand proud. I hope that the day will soon come when we can enjoy this with all the K-pop fans. I love you.”

For Album of the Year, IU said, “This is such a big award. This year, more than ever, I felt hungry for music and consumed it as a listener. I feel good about receiving this award. My music career can be short if you look at it one way or long if you look at it another, but I’ve never taken a break from releasing music once from age 20 to age 30. There were years when I wanted to take a break, but I spent those 10 years getting close to the fans who love my music through my songs, so I think I did well. This is really an award I wanted to win. Next year, I will work hard on music in my cool 30s. Uaena, I love you.”

BTS won Song of the Year for the third year in a row. As BTS are still in Los Angeles for their U.S. promotions, they sent a video message saying, “We’ve received the Song of the Year award at the Melon Music Awards. We were able to receive such a big award because of the love that everyone sent us. We’re happy that our summer song, ‘Butter,’ naturally permeated the year. We also spent a happy 2021. Our love to ARMY, who loved BTS’s music once again this year.”

aespa won a total of four awards, including Best Group (Female), a Top 10 Bonsang, Best New Artist (Female), and a Daesang—Record of the Year. In a video message, they said, “We’re grateful to producer Lee Soo Man and the executives and staff members at SM, who helped us make a cool album like ‘Savage.’ We want to share our gratitude for the amount of support we’ve received. Thanks to the people who helped us, we were able to achieve the things we’d only dreamed of.”

Check out the full list of winners here!

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