For those who are not familiar, the end of the year is dubbed as “award show season” in the K-pop industry. From November to January, almost 10 award and music festival shows are held to celebrate the biggest songs and artists in the industry. The MAMA Awards (formally known as Mnet Asian Music Awards) is one of the biggest events of the year. This year, it was held over the span of two days in South Korea and Japan with the theme ‘K-POP World Citizenship” and had performances from 26 different artists. Here is my ranking of the biggest performances from both nights!
- IVE & Kep1er & Nmixx & Le Sserafim & NewJeans
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When I saw that a girl group collaboration performance was on the lineup, I was so excited. Veteran K-pop fans know the iconic “Into the New World” performance with I.O.I, GFriend, Red Velvet and Twice from 2016 so I expected this one to be on the same level. I thought it was cool that the groups were mixed up when covering each other’s debut songs but I was overall disappointed. The song cover part felt like a school talent show and it did not flow nicely. The “Cheer Up” performance flowed better but it lacked cohesiveness. The girl groups were performing the song next to each other in their respective groups rather than together as one unit. It wasn’t until the end that it was more cohesive but not by much. I kind of wish they covered “Into the New World” rather than “Cheer Up” because Girls’ Generation is so iconic.
- NewJeans
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I don’t vibe with NewJeans because personally, I find them overhyped and their songs super overplayed because of TikTok (I’m sorry NewJeans fans, please don’t come after me). Ever since the controversy over the lyrics of their song “Cookie”, I found myself not ever listening to them willingly. I thought their intro was boring since it was just different members dancing to four of their songs (which is their entire discography). The rest of the performance wasn’t really anything special. I did like their props and stage setup since it goes nicely with their Y2K group concept.
- IVE
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With IVE, I was fairly surprised with their performance. I was ready to be like “Yes queens! Give us nothing!” since some of their performances since they debuted, in my opinion. Their set included their top 3 biggest songs, “Eleven,” “Love Dive” and “After Like.” I really liked how they included dance segments with remixed music that were sprinkled throughout so all the members got to shine separately. Their performance was fairly mundane with theatrics but overall, it was clean.
- ENHYPEN
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I don’t follow Enhypen but I did enjoy their performance this year. They opened their performance with “Blessed-Cursed,” which is my current favorite song so I was sad to see that it was shortened to just the 2nd verse and end of the song. I am not a big fan of “Future Perfect (Pass the Mic)” but I did really enjoy the dance break in the middle and the high performance value that they had throughout their entire set.
- NMIXX
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I really did not know what to expect from NMIXX’s performance. Their main group concept is mashing up two different genres into one song so to do that and also have a clean and cohesive award-show-level performance sounds difficult. I was actually surprised by their performance. At first, I was a little confused with the sailor/pirate concept for “O.O” and then the shift to the floral stage for “DICE.” For a rookie group, their vocals are nearly untouchable. The moment that made my jaw drop was when members Lily, Haewon and Sullyoon were passing the high note to each other during “DICE”. It is heartbreaking watching the performance back now that member Jinni has left the group just weeks after the award show but they did incredibly.
- Tomorrow X Together
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As a casual listener of TXT, I know that they can put on some great performances and this year was no different. I am obsessed with the theatrical concept that they went for when performing “Opening Sequence” and the transition to a heartbroken emo boy through “Lonely Boy” and into “Good Boy Gone Bad.” The long dance break toward the end was incredible and really showcased how amazing TXT is at performing.
- Le Sserafim
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Despite being one of the youngest rookie groups in the line-up, Le Sserafim did not disappoint at all with their performance. The group had amazing and clean dance breaks in their intro and in the middle of their performance set with a genre they have yet to explore in their comeback concepts (could it be a spoiler for their next release?). Although I do not actively follow them, I really enjoy their catchy music so I found their performance very entertaining to watch.
- ITZY
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ITZY is one of the biggest girl groups in the 4th Generation right now and they really showcased their performance skills during MAMA. They performed their new song “Cheshire” for the first time followed by their last release “Sneakers.” Debuting a new song at MAMA is always risky because of public reception but they absolutely killed it and I am obsessed with their new song now. I am not a huge fan of “Sneakers” so I thought the 2nd part of the performance was okay.
- BIBI
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Bibi has been my new obsession, not just as an artist but as a woman. She is so talented and her aura is addicting. She performed her new song “BIBI Vengeance” and her stage presence was so alluring to watch. Despite the chorus being heavily censored, her vocals were so clean that I could not tell it apart from the backtrack. She then joined K-pop veteran Hyolyn for a jaw-dropping collaboration performance of another Bibi track, “LAW.” Her entire set was incredible and is heavily feeding into my Bibi addiction.
- G-(IDLE)
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God, the love I have for G-(IDLE) is insane. They performed their biggest songs this year, “My Bag” and “Tomboy” (the latter being performed as a special remix). At the beginning of “My Bag”, leader Soyeon opened their set with a rap portion that snuck in a little diss to Mnet and the MAMA Awards (it’s giving G-Dragon at MAMA Awards 2014) for giving them ‘specially made and inauthentic awards.’ As controversial as Mnet is with giving out awards, that did not stop G-(IDLE) from giving one of the best performances of the night. Also, their live vocals were amazing.
- Treasure
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Treasure is a group that I got into this year so I was really looking forward to their performance. The main rappers (members Choi Hyunsuk, Yoshi and Haruto) started off the set with a hype performance of their unit song “VolKno” and went to the artists’ seating area to get them hyped up. “JikJin” followed with the addition of a special dance break that I LOVED. This was a bittersweet performance for me since this is their first big performance after members Mashiho and Yedam left the group. The rest of the group gave their all in this performance and it was incredible, especially with their live vocals.
- Stray Kids
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I love Stray Kids because not only do they put out amazing music, they put on one hell of a performance. Their MAMA Awards performances are always incredible but they really outdid themselves this year. They performed special remixes of their songs “Venom” and “MANIAC” that really pushed their performance concept. They already go all out on their dancing but they really pushed themselves to a level that I have never seen before as a stan for almost four years. And to have live vocals on top of that? I am in awe after watching their performance.
- J-Hope of bts
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For the first time ever, BTS did not perform nor attend MAMA awards as a full group. Member J-Hope attended as the sole representative of the group and took the MAMA stage for the first time as a solo artist. He performed “More,” “Arson,” and “Future” from his recent solo album Jack in the Box. As a die-hard ARMY, the performance was bittersweet because we were robbed of one last full-group performance at MAMA before BTS continues with their military enlistment. Nevertheless, J-Hope killed his performance. Closing out the show with “Future” was the perfect way to capture the theme of the show and showcase his true self as an artist and person.