33rd Golden Disc Awards Explains How BTS and iKON Were Determined As Grand Prize Winners

The 33rd Golden Disc Awards committee has shared the details behind BTS’s and iKON’s Daesang wins this year.

On January 6, BTS took home their second ever Grand Prize (Daesang) for Album of The Year (Disc Daesang) at the 33rd Golden Disc Awards for their album “Love Yourself: Answer.” iKON also landed their own Daesang for Digital Song of The Year (Digital Daesang) for their 2018 hit song “Love Scenario.”

Not long afterward, Korean news outlet Ilgan Sports released a report detailing how the 33rd Golden Disc Awards committee determined BTS and iKON as their Daesang winners.

According to the report, data for Daesang awards was based on sales data for albums released between December 2017 until November 2018. The sales data was taken from Gaon Chart statistics up until December 2018. In the case an artist has released more than one album within that time period, the committee would choose the album with the highest sales to be nominated. Also, in the evaluations for both the Bonsang and Daesang awards, variety and drama OST albums and songs were excluded. Albums were only considered for an award if they had six or more new songs. This excluded any intros, outros, instrumental tracks, as well as different versions of songs on the same album.

The total score was determined 70 percent by sales and 30 percent by expert evaluation from the committee. Gaon Chart sales data was converted into a score and used as a standard for quantitative evaluation while the qualitative evaluation was done by the 33rd Golden Disc Awards’ executive committee. The executive committee consists of 30 experts from various fields including distributors, TV producers, music critics, and pop culture reporters.

BTS, who won the Album of The Year Daesang for two years in a row, scored the highest points in all evaluations and were undeniably seen as this year’s Daesang winners. BTS raised the scores even higher with their amazing double million album sales for “Love Yourself: Answer.” The executive committee all voted for BTS and they also received 29 out of 30 votes in the Album of The Year evaluations. With an almost perfect score of 99.7 points, BTS was overwhelmingly ahead of other nominees. Right after BTS was EXO who received a score of 55.6 points. The top three albums that the judges chose for 2018 were by BTS, Wanna One, and TWICE.

This year’s executive committee began a heated discussion over the reliability of chart sales. This is due to the suspicions raised last year towards the reliability of real-time music charts. At the time, it was found that some albums that did not receive much support from pop music fans were still rising to number one on the real-time music charts. Therefore this year, the executive committee demanded a more fair and convincing evaluation process. The executive committee stated, “We raised the percentage rate for qualitative evaluation and based our evaluation on sales of albums chosen by the public as well as separately taking into consideration various aspects of our nominees.”

There was some little interesting YG Entertainment competition in the album category of the 33rd Golden Disc Awards. The album sales for both iKON and BLACKPINK were both quite high and both groups were in the lead when it came to the qualitative evaluation. With a small difference in their scores of only 3.4 points, BLACKPINK and iKON clearly demonstrated the abilities of the music powerhouse that is YG Entertainment. “Love Scenario” by iKON received 17 out of 30 votes in the evaluation for Digital Song of The Year. In the multiple choice evaluation, BTS, BLACKPINK, and iKON displayed high scores with 29, 27, and 25 votes respectively.

The Golden Disc Awards executive committee commented on this year’s awards by saying, “Just like how songs in the pop music market can be released in different forms and ways these days, the different platforms on which these songs are streamed are also expanding. The Golden Disc Awards aim to flexibly reflect the ever-changing trends and flow of pop music while regarding fairness and reliability at the highest value. The Korean music market was revitalized last year with the expansion of K-pop. It was a year filled with powerful activity as Korean artists performed all around the globe. The Golden Disc Awards will continue to be a place where the hard work of K-pop artists is relentlessly applauded and supported, as well as a space to look back on these artists’ achievements.

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