Melon Music Award for Artist of the Year

The Melon Music Award for Artist of the Year is an accolade presented by Kakao M at the annual Melon Music Awards. The Artist of the Year award was first given at its inaugural online ceremony in 2005; since 2009, it consists of the most prestigious awards given at the event, alongside Album of the Year and Song of the Year.

Melon Music Award for Artist of the Year
Country	South Korea
Presented by	Kakao M
First award	2005 (online) 2009 (ceremony)
Currently held by	Aespa – (2024)
Most wins	BTS (3)
Most nominations	IU
Website	Official website

Winners and nominees

TVXQ (2005, 2008)

Girls' Generation (2009–10)

Beast (2011–12)

Shinee (2013)

IU (2014, 2021)

Big Bang (2015)

Exo (2016–17)

BTS (2018–20)

Lim Young-woong (2022)

NewJeans (2023)

Aespa (2024)

Winners are listed first and highlighted in bold.

Year[I]	Artists	Ref.
Online winners
2005	TVXQ	[1]
2006	Shinhwa	[2]
2007	Shin Hye-sung	[3]
2008	TVXQ	[4]
Artist of the Year (daesang)
2009	Girls' Generation	[5]
2010	Girls' Generation
	IU
	2NE1
	CNBLUE
	2AM
2011	Beast	[6]
	2NE1
	Leessang
	Big Bang
	IU
2012	Beast	[7]
	Busker Busker
	Big Bang
	Psy
	IU
2013	Shinee
	Sistar
	IU
	Exo
	G-Dragon
2014	IU	[8]
	g.o.d
	Beast
	AKMU
	Taeyang
2015	Big Bang	[9]
	Shinee
	Exo
	Zion.T
	Hyukoh
2016	Exo	[10]
	Twice
	BTS
	GFriend
	Zico
2017	Exo
	IU
	BTS
	Bolbbalgan4
	Heize
2018	BTS	[11]
	Exo
	Wanna One
	iKon
	Twice
2019	BTS	[12]
	Chungha
	Exo
	Taeyeon
	Jannabi
2020	BTS	[13]
	Baek Ye-rin
	IU
	Lim Young-woong
	Zico
2021	IU	[14]
	Aespa
	BTS
	Lim Young-woong
	NCT Dream
2022	Lim Young-woong
	BTS
	Ive
	(G)I-dle
	MeloMance
2023	NewJeans	[15]
	Aespa
	Ive
	Le Sserafim
	NCT Dream
2024	Aespa	[16]
	(G)I-dle
	Day6
	NewJeans
	Plave

Artists with multiple nominations

8 nominations IU 7 nominations BTS 6 nominations Exo 3 nominations Beast Big Bang Aespa

2 nominations TVXQ Girls' Generation 2NE1 Shinee Zico Lim Young-woong Ive NCT Dream NewJeans (G)I-dle

Artists with multiple wins

3 wins

• BTS

2 wins

• IU
• Exo
• Beast
• Girls' Generation

See also

• Mnet Asian Music Award for Artist of the Year

Notes