For the first time ever, the American Music Awards (AMA) has dedicated K-pop it own category. The AMAs is one of the top three music shows in the U.S., along with Grammy Awards and the Billboard Music Awards that annually celebrate achievements in the pop music industry. Launched in 1974, the AMA determines its winners entirely depending on online fan voting and is known to best represent fan-based popularity in global pop music culture.
This shows exactly how popular K-pop has become around the world. K-pop’s emergence as an international phenomenon clearly marks its most visible cultural exports for South Korea. Last week, during the announcement of nominees, the AMAs added that they are finally ready to introduce the Favorite K-pop Artist award, one of four new awards categories for this year’s show.
Fans are excited.
With this dedication, the AMAs became the first major U.S. pop music awards show to include a category dedicated to K-pop. The artists nominated this year are BTS, Blackpink, Seventeen, Tomorrow X Together and Twice.
BTS is also nominated this year in the Favorite Pop Duo or Group category for the fourth year in a row. They are nominated alongside global artist group Coldplay, Imagine Dragons, Maneskin, and OneRepublic. Moreover, the band first recieved an AMA for Favorite Social Artist in 2018 as has won an award every year since. Last year, they won the Artist of the Year award, one of the biggest honors at the AMAs.
The nominations were announced on the AMA’s official homepage as well as social media platforms. American music and entertainment magazine Billboard commented about the new category as “a breakthrough for K-pop.” According to Billboards, the nominees are based on “key fan interactions,” which include album sales, song sales, streaming, radio airplay, and tour grosses. The 2022 American Music Awards will air live from Microsoft Theater at L.A. Live in Los Angeles on November 21st.
