2021 Korean Popular Culture & Arts Awards: NCT Dream and Oh My Girl felicitated
K-pop just may be the biggest cultural asset of South Korea. It is the sixth biggest music industry in the world. On top of that, it singlehandedly brought in more than $5 billion for the country in 2020. Acknowledging the global impact that K-pop has, South Korea has been doing its best to commend them. From revising their mandatory military service law to assigning BTS as special presidential envoys for the UN, the government continues to show their appreciation. And now they have honored NCT Dream and Oh My Girl.
Back in September, the 2021 Minister of Culture, Sports, and Tourism Awards felicitated Seventeen with the Hallyu Culture Award for their influence in the K-pop industry. And on October 28, the 2021 Korean Popular Culture & Arts Awards was held. It’s organized by the South Korean government to honor artists that have contributed to the development of the country’s culture. It was held at the National Theater of Korea with MCs Jang Ye-won and On Joo-wan.
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NCT Dream and Oh My Girl honored by Minister of Culture
Along with actors, musicians, writers being awarded, K-pop groups were also recognized for their work in the music industry. The Minister of Culture, Sports, and Tourism’s commendation included third-gen K-pop groups NCT Dream and Oh My Girl. NCT Dream are riding high with the smashing success of their recent releases -- ‘Hot Sauce’ and its repackage ‘Hello Future’. They became the youngest act to have triple-million sales and have sold a total of 5.3 million copies. ‘Hello Future’ was the highest-selling repackaged album with 500k sales on the first day. It is a million-seller album while ‘Hot Sauce’ was awarded a double million badge.
In the meantime, Oh My Girl has continued to impress with their viral hits like ‘Dolphin’ and ‘Dun Dun Dance’ despite being handled by a small record label. They were the runner-ups of the fierce survival show ‘Queendom’ and were dubbed by the country ‘Summer Queens’ for their successful summer releases. ‘Dolphin’ is still making the rounds on social media while ‘Nonstop’ has become the longest-charting girl group song. It made this record by beating TWICE’s ‘Cheer Up’ by charting on MelOn for 480 days in a row.
Some of the other winners are ‘Minari’ actress Young Yuh-jung, who became the first Korean actress to get an Oscar. She got the 1st Class Order of Cultural Merit. Singer Lee Jang-hee got the 2nd Class Order. Park In-hwan of ‘Navillera’ fame got the 3rd Class Order while the Presidential Commendation went to actors like Kim Young-chul, ‘Steel Rain’s Jung Woo-sung and ‘Vincenzo’s writer Park Jae-bum. Lee Jung-eun of ‘Parasite’ fame and ‘Minari’s Han Ye-ri were commended by the Prime Minister. Here’s the full list of winners.