The brightest K-pop stars will be performing at the 1st THE AWARDS stage.

ENHYPEN, FIFTYFIFTY, QWER, TWS, and UNIS have been named in the 1st lineup for the K-pop awards ceremony ‘The Awards’.

The Awards revealed the 1st performance lineup for the 1st THE AWARDS with upick on the 6th, and announced that 5 teams including ENHYPEN, FIFTYFIFTY, QWER, TWS, and UNIS have confirmed their appearance.

ENHYPEN, the undisputed top-tier of K-pop, will be performing at The Awards. ENHYPEN will be performing at The Awards with their 2nd full-length album released in July of last year. With ‘Romance: Untold’, they achieved a record-breaking sales of nearly 3 million, and they also achieved musical perfection, earning them the title of ‘Album of the Year’. The repackaged version of their second full-length album, which has become a ‘masterpiece’, was also released at the end of last year, becoming a hot topic by achieving million-seller sales.

Fifty Fifty, the main characters of the ‘Cupid’(Cupid) syndrome, will also meet their global fandom through the first The Awards. After reorganizing as a five-member system, Fifty Fifty released their second mini-album ‘Love Tune’ in September of last year, recording double mega hits with ‘SOS’(SOS)’(Gravity). Their nickname ‘GolfTy’, which is a combination of their group names, has gained global fame. Their comeback in September gave them even more momentum, and riding the momentum, they held a virtual ‘national tour’ in eight major cities in North America late last year.

With three consecutive hits including ‘Overdose’, ‘Fake Idol’, and ‘My Name is Malgeum’, QWER has now become a ‘symbol of K-bands’, contributing greatly to the rise of band music as a mainstream K-pop genre.

QWER has also become the center of ‘social hot trends’ through global SNS. ‘Overdose’, which opened the door to the ‘QWER Syndrome’ of the ‘Discovery of the Year’, was ranked #1 on YouTube‘s list of the most popular Korean songs of 2024.

This year’s best rookie tours are also planning their first meeting with the ‘The Awards’. Tours, who debuted early last year and quickly rose to the top with ‘First Encounter Doesn‘t Go as Planned’, continued their success with ‘If I’m S, You Be My N’‘Last Festival’, establishing themselves as one of the most notable new artists and the next generation leading K-pop.

Eunice made their official debut in March of last year and have shown the widest global presence among the fifth-generation girl groups, performing in Korea as well as in Japan and other Asian countries. Formed through a TV audition, they proved their potential as a next-generation representative girl group by hitting back-to-back home runs with their debut song ‘Superwoman’ and ‘Only You Don‘t Know’.

The ‘1st D Awards with upick’, hosted by Sports Donga and organized by ‘upick’ and WSM, will be held at 6 PM on February 22nd at the Hwajung Gymnasium of Korea University in Seoul.



Reporter Heo Min-nyeong mignon@donga.com