Continuing its winning streak, K-pop king BTS scooped up the grand prize at the 2018 Soribada Best K-Music Awards.

At the annual event, held Thursday at the Olympic Gymnastics Arena in Jamsil, Seoul, the pop idols received the grand prize along with the main prize and the world social artist award. Actor Han Seok-jun and singer Son Dam-bi hosted the awards, now in their second year, for the popular music-streaming company.

Winners were chosen on the basis of sales volume, both for albums and digital music, from September last year through August this year in combination with judges’ evaluations, data accrued by Soribada, and the results of online and mobile ballots.

All seven BTS members took to the stage to accept their awards with heartfelt words of thanks for the undying support of fans around the globe, collectively known as the band’s “army.”

After gazing into the crowd for a while, RM finally said, “This is the place where I wanted to perform before retirement. And three years ago, we held our solo concert in this place, followed by Gocheok SkyDome and Olympic Stadium.”

“We want you to know that it’s you who made these seven not-so-special boys special. We hope that our existence can make your day and your life special too,” he added.

The artists went on to perform their recent single “Idol.” For an encore, they performed an earlier hit, “Fake Love.”




The star-studded event also honored big-name K-pop stars Twice, Mamamoo, Wanna One and EXO. Twice took home the digital grand prize, Mamamoo snapped up the most popular female artist award, Wanna One grabbed the most popular male artist award, and EXO got an award for popularity with netizens. Rookie groups The Boyz, Stray Kids, Nature and IZ all received rookie awards.

Last year’s grand prize winner was EXO.

(lotus@heraldcorp.com)