The 34th Golden Disk Awards will be held on January 4 and 5 next year at Gocheok Sky Dome in Guro-gu, Seoul. There will be awards in the digital music category for selecting songs of the year on January 4 and in the music category for the album of the year on January 5.
The Golden Disk Awards, Korea’s most prestigious, put fairness at the top of its list, reflecting trends and issues in the music industry, changed the selection of winners. The nominees are music and albums released from late October 2018 to the end of October 2019. Music and records excluded from the candidates were included in the review as they overlap in the closing period of the previous year’s tally. By mid-December, the album sales and music usage will be tallied and reviewed with Gaon Chart data.
The online voting rate was excluded from the screening criteria again this time to prevent awards in major categories such as the main prize, the grand prize, and the new impression award from turning into popularity. The screening ratio has been increased from 30 percent to 40 percent. The results reflect the opinion of the executive committee that the ratio of expert screening and the number of expert evaluation teams participating in the review should be increased to emphasize more professionalism and fairness, as the reliability of music charts has been reduced. An executive committee composed of six industry experts, including officials from South Korea’s leading music distributors and K-pop experts, agreed to increase the ratio of all music and music reviews.
This time, 50 K-pop experts, including the executive committee of the Golden Disc Awards and reporters in charge of music programs for broadcasters, will be screened. The number of judges who participated in expert screening increased by 20 compared to last year. They will conduct a normal evaluation of candidates calculated by quantitative assessment such as sales volume and capacity in consideration of their musical performance and socio-cultural influence. Candidates by category will be available on the official website of the Golden Disk Awards on Thursday.
The Golden Disk Awards have been running for 34 years since its first episode in 1986. It has established itself as a stage that singers want the most, and the stage where they want to stand the most, thanks to the fairness of the award and the idea-filled stage production and planning. From the 32nd episode, it ruled out online voting scores in all categories except for popular awards, further enhancing fairness. Starting with the 21st episode, the target was divided into music and music categories, reflecting the trend of consuming music from albums to music. Starting with the 26th episode, the award ceremony was held for two days to increase the scale. The broadcast will be on live from JTBC, JTBC2 and JTBC4.
