The nominations for the 2026 MAMA Awards were announced on 12 October, and the headline is a study in K-pop history: BTS and BIGBANG, the two groups that defined a generation of Korean popular music at home and abroad, lead the field of nominees for this year's ceremony. The announcement, first reported in full by Billboard, sets up a November showdown at the Kyocera Dome in Osaka that will be fought as much over legacy as over trophies.
The MAMA Awards, presented by CJ ENM, remain the most internationally visible of the Korean music industry's year-end ceremonies. After staging the 2025 edition in Hong Kong, the show returns to Japan for a two-night ceremony on 20 and 21 November, with the performances streaming live worldwide on CJ ENM's Mnet Plus platform. The first round of fan voting is already underway, and as ever it is the Fans' Choice categories that will draw the heaviest traffic.
BTS and BIGBANG sit atop the nominee field
BTS collected nominations across the board, including the grand prize of Artist of the Year, Album of the Year for ARIRANG, Best Male Group, Best Vocal Performance Group for “SWIM”, and Best Music Video for “2.0”. The nominations confirm the group's full return to the centre of the industry's biggest night after a period in which its members' mandatory military service reshaped the K-pop calendar.
BIGBANG, meanwhile, scored nominations including Artist of the Year, Best Male Group, Best Music Video and Best Dance Performance Male Group, the latter two for their comeback single “BiiiG”. For a group whose most recent full-group activity belongs to an earlier era of the industry, landing on this year's shortlist in four of the most competitive categories is a statement in itself.
They are not alone at the top of the count. Seven acts picked up five nominations apiece: MAMAMOO — four of them earned by its youngest member, Hwasa, across solo categories — alongside aespa, ATEEZ, IVE, LE SSERAFIM, ILLIT and CORTIS. The spread suggests an unusually wide-open year, with no single fourth-generation act running away from the pack.
The year of the comeback veteran
What makes the 2026 nominations genuinely different from recent years is the presence of second-generation acts at the very top of the pile. K-pop's year-end ceremonies have spent the last decade crowning newer groups, with the exception of last year, when G-Dragon took Artist of the Year — a result that now looks less like a one-off tribute and more like the leading edge of a reunion wave.
The eligibility window for this year's awards — music released between 1 October 2025 and 30 September 2026 — caught both of the industry's defining male groups in active form. BTS's full-group reunion has been one of the dominant narratives of the year, and its album ARIRANG, named for the traditional Korean folk song that sits at the heart of the country's musical identity, is positioned as the centrepiece of that comeback. BIGBANG's return, by contrast, is the industry's quietest and most consequential revival: a group with little need to prove anything, now competing directly with acts half its age.
The veteran theme extends into the solo categories. Taeyang of BIGBANG is nominated for Best Male Artist and Best Dance Performance Male Solo for “LIVE FAST DIE SLOW”, while Doh Kyung Soo — D.O. of EXO — joins him on the Best Male Artist shortlist alongside Taeyong of NCT, Yeonjun of TOMORROW X TOGETHER and Young K of DAY6.
The categories that will decide the night
The Artist of the Year field is the deepest in years. Beyond BTS and BIGBANG, the shortlist includes BLACKPINK, aespa, IVE, Stray Kids, ENHYPEN, SEVENTEEN-affiliated acts and rising rookies such as ALPHA DRIVE ONE — a reminder of how crowded the top of the industry has become. The Song of the Year nominees have not yet been revealed; they will be drawn from the ten most-nominated tracks in the best song category, with the announcement expected closer to the ceremony.
Album of the Year carries eighteen nominees, among them ARIRANG by BTS, DEADLINE by BLACKPINK, LEMONADE by aespa, GOLDEN HOUR: Part.5 by ATEEZ, EUPHORIA by ALPHA DRIVE ONE, GREENGREEN by CORTIS, REVERXE by EXO and REVIVE+ by IVE. With that many contenders, the physical-and-digital sales data and judging panels will matter as much as the fan vote.
The collaboration categories tell their own story about the industry's current creative economy. aespa's “WDA (Whole Different Animal)” featuring G-Dragon of BIGBANG pits the biggest idol group of the moment against the scene's most decorated veteran producer-performer, while LE SSERAFIM's “SPAGHETTI” featuring j-hope of BTS pairs two of the industry's most choreographically ambitious acts. Both tracks are nominated for Best Collaboration, and the G-Dragon link gives aespa a plausible path to an upset in categories where voting blocs are fiercely contested.
Elsewhere, the Best New Artist race features ten rookies — ALPHA DRIVE ONE, AND2BLE, EVAN, H//PE Princess, hrtz.wav, LNGSHOT, MODYSSEY, OURBIRTHDAY, TUIDE and UNCHILD — a sign of how aggressively the major labels have been debuting new groups this cycle. The female group category is equally loaded: aespa, BABYMONSTER, BLACKPINK, Hearts2Hearts, ILLIT, IVE, LE SSERAFIM and NMIXX are all nominated for Best Female Group.
One of the most individually decorated nominees is Yeonjun of TOMORROW X TOGETHER, who earned three solo nominations: Artist of the Year, Best Male Artist and Best Dance Performance Male Solo for “Ice Cream”. It is a rare feat for an idol still primarily active with his group.
How voting works and when to watch
The first round of fan voting opened alongside the nomination announcement. As with previous years, the process runs through the Mnet Plus platform, where registered users can cast votes in the fan-decided categories. The main prizes — the daesangs, or grand prizes, of Artist, Song and Album of the Year — are decided by a combination of judges' scores, digital and physical sales data, and voting, which means the fan campaigns will matter most in the Fans' Choice categories.
