Red Velvet Joins BTS As The Only K-Pop Groups To Win A Daesang For Every Release In Their Trilogies
August 13’s Soribada Best K-Music Awards brought a lot of achievements for SM Entertainment girl group Red Velvet. Two of the members, Irene and Seulgi,were there to accept the group’s Bonsang and Music Of The Year Daesang awards, earning them a very unique achievement—one only BTS has been able to attain in the past.
On September 18, 2017, BTS released their Love Yourself: Her mini-album along with its title track, “DNA”. This also marked the beginning of their Love Yourself trilogy, which would be later followed by full album Love Yourself: Tear (along with “Fake Love”) and repackage Love Yourself: Answer (featuring “IDOL”).
The Love Yourself trilogy is BTS’s way of telling a story about self-love and acceptance. What starts as a playlist of colorful love songs with Her continues with Tear, a darker album that talks about heartbreak and pain, successfully wrapping up with Answer. The last part of the trilogy encourages everyone to find love in themselves for themselves, which seems to be BTS’s Answer to the dilemma of love and heartbreak.
The trilogy was well-received at the years’ Korean award shows, where BTS won daesangs for each of the title tracks. “DNA”, “Fake Love”, and “IDOL” all received an array of main awards, making BTS the first artist (and only, at the time) with a daesang for every title track in their trilogy.
Now, Red Velvet has joined them. On June 19, 2019, the group released comeback title track “Zimzalabim”, part of their The ReVe Festival: Day 1 mini-album.
The critically acclaimed trilogy follows Reve, Red Velvet’s signature robot friend, and her adventures in the so-called “ReVe Festival”. In “Zimzalabim”, Red Velvet encourage listeners to follow their dreams and break out of the “restrictive world” they’re in. The music video ends with Reve and the members flying into space, while the second day finds the robot and Red Velvet learning how to swim with catchy summer song “Umpah Umpah”, the title track of The ReVe Festival: Day 2.
The amusing festival was then emotionally finalized with none other than The ReVe Festival: Finale and its title track “Psycho”. This release brought incredible commercial success to the group, racking up All-Kills on the day of release, which continued for several days.
The trilogy was highly awarded by Korean award shows too, with “Zimzalabim” winning Best Stage Of The Year daesang at the 2019 Soribada Best K-Music Awards and “Umpah Umpah” winning Song Of The Year daesang at the 2019 Asia Artist Awards.
With “Psycho” winning the Music Of The Year main prize at this year’s Soribada Best K-Music Awards last night, Red Velvet received the final push they needed to join BTS’s achievement. As such, they are now the first girl group to receive a daesang for every release in an album trilogy.
Given that all the title tracks were released in the same year within six months, Red Velvet also became the only Korean act to win a main prize for three consecutive title tracks released in the same calendar year and such a short time period.
Of course, this isn’t the only achievement BTS and Red Velvet share. In 2018, for example, they were both awarded by the Korean Ministry of Culture at the 2018 Korean Popular Culture & Arts Awards, where Red Velvet received the Culture Minister’s Award and The Cultural Merit Award was given to BTS.
Unsurprisingly, both groups have also been praised multiple times by the President of South Korea for their cultural impact and contribution in contemporary pop culture and the arts, helping spread the Korean Wave around the world.
