The Definitive 2021 Music Show Win Summary

As many of you may know, I maintain a database of music show wins. Since we're finally done with 2021, I've decided to break down and summarise all the music show wins awarded this year.

Given that there are six music shows a week, there were 313 possible opportunities to award a win. However, music shows are often cancelled, so the actual number of wins given out was only 257.

Let's start simply with a ranking of those 257 wins by artist in the chart below:

MusicShowWinsByArtist2021.png

The list is topped by BTS and IU, which should come as a surprise to no one.

However, what might be unexpected is how impressively NCT Dream and NCT 127 did. In fact, the two sub-units received more music show wins in 2021 than in the previous five years combined (they debuted in 2016). Both have seen a large increase in physical sales, and even their digital performance has improved noticeably (they actually topped the Gaon Digital Chart). What was the catalyst for their huge fandom growth? It seems that they really exploded in popularity over the past year or so.

Meanwhile, (G)I-dle got off to a strong start in 2021, with 10 wins for "Hwaa", but faltered following Soojin's bullying scandal. Will the group ever be able to reclaim their former glory?

Tied with 10 wins is Brave Girls, who represent undoubtedly the most unanticipated success story of 2021. The group had never won on a music show prior to this year. But now the question becomes: will they be able to keep up this momentum?

I was also surprised by how well The Boyz fared. They won 10 times in 2021, which is double the number of times they had previously won since debuting in 2017. Their physical sales are nearly eight times what they were when they started out, while their digital performance has also improved. I'm curious to see if they can rise up and become a true top-tier group.

Are there any other results in the chart that seem surprising?

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Please see these posts for further breakdowns of 2021 music show wins:

• Music Show Wins by Song

• Music Show Wins by Company
• Music Show Wins by Artist Type

• Music Show Wins by Artist within each Artist Type
• Music Show Wins by Generation
• Music Show Wins by Artist within each Generation

Quote from Charmed123

Bts and IU kings and queen

Just for fun, I checked my win database for 2020, and BTS won a whopping 50 times, while IU only won 3 times, so that's a huge improvement for her!

Quote from pchromo4

IU only released "eight" in 2020 and I think it only won in Inkigayo (feel free to correct if wrong) since it was a digital single. Makes sense she won a lot more this year since she had 3 comebacks and even promoted one of them on music shows for 1 week.

Yes you're correct; IU's three wins in 2020 were all on Inkigayo.

Now for 2021, she had 11 wins for Celebrity, 8 wins for Lilac, and 8 wins for Strawberry Moon.

Quote from MassiveKpopFan

Anticipating another 20 wins for BTS next year.

That actually seems a bit low (assuming they'll be having more than one comeback).

Next, I'll take a look at which *songs* won the most music shows in 2021. The chart below contains every single song that won this year (again, 257 wins in total):

MusicShowWinsBySong2021.png

Quote from tetetete

kang daniel has a lot of wins

Yeah I think a big part of it is that he does surprisingly well on the Gaon Digital Chart. Paranoia and Antidote actually reached #2 and #1, respectively, due to DANITY's downloading strength.

Quote from Kreatin

Good work.

Whats the max wins per music show these days? i know inkigayo has 3, but the rest?

Here are the maximum wins allowed per each show currently:

The Show: 3

Show Champion: 3

M Countdown: 3

Music Bank: ∞

Music Core: 5

Inkigayo: 3

As you can see, most of them have instituted a "Triple Crown" system. Meanwhile, Music Core's "Quintuple Crown" only started in February 2021.

Quote from the101

This is interesting data!

I’m sure someone else will weigh in here, but putting on my marketing hat, I think it’s a perfect storm rooted in the pandemic. The fanbase has been slowly and steadily growing and I think the pandemic accelerated and emphasized some of these trends. Long answer incoming!

1. A dedicated fanbase. Although it feels like NCT exploded in the last year or two, you can see a slow and steady build of the fandom and sales and digital metrics. The main difference I see in the fandom is better coordination on goals for winning or streaming. NCTzens have a rep for being lazy but I saw some really concerted pushes around these comebacks.

2. Social content. NCT content has proven to be a gateway to the music and greater engagement, particularly during the pandemic. Their social content is fun with lots of styles and long running jokes, while it’s clear SM uses social listening to infuse fandom jokes, theories and obsessions into content. There’s been industry buzz about the content and the way they use it to engage with their fandom. I’m not saying that no other group does any of these things, only that I think NCT has done it really well and it shows.

3. The Resonance boost. The all unit event really raised the profile with a constant stream of music, content and TV shows while (again) everyone was at home. Every single unit saw a boost coming out of that. This stacks onto the existing fanbase that was built.

Resonance was a big event and most of the singles that supported it were fairly user friendly to people new to the group. Make A Wish, 90s Love and Work It are bops but they are not completely unfamiliar styles, same with From Home. (They still feel like NCT songs, but they’re not as potentially polarizing as Kick It or Hot Sauce or Sticker.)

Additionally, the social content worked to help distinguish different members and their personas/personalities (“big bro,” “newbie cutie”, “funny guy”) for people new to the group.

It also highlighted the vocal abilities and emphasized the music, whether it was the behind the scenes recording sessions or competitions that required them to sing. Again, the songs on the albums were purposely selected to emphasize the vocal abilities. Any NCTzen will tell you half of the discography is just straight forward vocals (often r&b flavored), mostly in the bsides vs the title tracks. So if you were new to NCT and came in through these more approachable bops, you’d also find great bsides.

Resonance social content was like drinking out of a firehose, which could be overwhelming, but certainly served it’s purpose!

4. They’re different. Whether you love or hate their music, the style is very distinctive. There’s always a lot of talk of Kpop being the same or familiar, and they have created a really specific sound. It’s often used as a complaint or snark to say a song “sounds like a NCT song,” but I think it’s testament to the fact that they have a very specific sound. Not every group’s style is used as a description! I think they are often ahead of the curve. This isn’t to knock any other group’s style, merely to make the point that they do stand out in an ear catching way on the busy Kpop landscape.

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Thank you for the detailed response! What you wrote does help shed some light on their growth.