With only two months to go until the year 2015, the year-end award ceremonies are rounding up the musicians who made strong showings in the K-pop scene this year.

MelOn, one of Korea’s major music streaming site, revealed its list of the nation’s 10 most highly favored musicians -- the nominees for the Artist, Best Song and Album awards at the upcoming MelOn Music Award ceremony.

The 10 artists were selected based on album sales and online votes.

Boy and girl groups dominated the list, with only a few solo musicians included.

The nominees include four boy bands (EXO, g.o.d, WINNER and BEAST), three girl bands (2NE1, Girl’s Day and Sistar), and the teenage duo Akdong Musician. IU and Taeyang were the only solo artists nominated.

It is noteworthy that WINNER and Akdong Musician, which debuted earlier this year, appeared on the list. Also, g.o.d, which recently made a comeback as a group after a 12-year hiatus, was included despite its long absence from the K-pop scene.

For the Rookie award, YG Entertainment’s newest boy band WINNER, TV audition winner Park Bo-ram and SM Entertainment’s latest girl group Red Velvet were named.

EXO, INFINITE, BEAST, B1A4 and WINNER were nominated for the netizens’ favorite award.

WINNER, EXO and BEAST seem to be the strongest candidates for a prize this year as they were named in multiple categories.

The MelOn Music Awards 2014 is one of the major K-pop music award ceremonies. Loen Entertainment, which runs the music chart, will launch a second vote to decide the winner for each award.
The vote on the final 10 artists and groups will take place on the MelOn website until Nov. 12. Only members of the music site are eligible to vote.

This year’s Melon Music Award is scheduled to be held on Nov. 13 at the Gymnastics Stadium in Olympic Park, eastern Seoul. It will air live on cable channels, the Melon website and 1theK YouTube channel.

(khnews@heraldcorp.com)