TXT won five trophies, including Artist of the Year, as BTS, Hwasa, CORTIS and a broad field of K-pop acts were recognized at the KM Chart Awards 2026 in Seoul.
The KM Chart Awards 2026 placed TXT at the center of this year’s winners list, with the group collecting five trophies at the ceremony held July 25 at Korea University’s Hwajeong Tiger Dome in Seoul. The night’s biggest result was TXT’s win for Artist of the Year, one of the event’s Daesang honors and the clearest signal of the group’s broad chart and fandom strength over the eligibility period.
TXT’s five-award haul also included two categories decided entirely by fan voting: Best Popular Song and Best Popular Male Group. Those wins gave the group a split profile at the ceremony, combining a top institutional honor with categories that directly reflected audience mobilization. In a year when fandom engagement remains a major measure of K-pop influence, that combination made TXT’s showing one of the most consequential outcomes of the event.
Four Daesang Winners Shape The Night
The ceremony distributed its grand prizes across several major names rather than concentrating every headline award around one act. BTS won Album of the Year for the studio album ARIRANG, adding another major honor to the group’s long awards history. Hwasa of MAMAMOO earned Song of the Year for Good Goodbye, while CORTIS received Record of the Year for the EP GREENGREEN.
Taken together, the Daesang results highlighted different sides of the current Korean music market. TXT’s Artist of the Year win emphasized group momentum and fan power; BTS’s album award recognized the continued weight of a full-length release from one of K-pop’s most globally visible acts; Hwasa’s song award pointed to the impact of a standout solo track; and CORTIS’s record award reflected the growing role of newer releases with strong identity and replay value.
The KM Chart Awards also named its Ultimate 12 winners, a group of main-prize honorees that showed the breadth of the field. BTS, Hwasa, TXT, P1Harmony, ZEROBASEONE, RIIZE, NCT WISH, KickFlip, Hearts2Hearts, ALLDAY PROJECT, CORTIS and ALPHA DRIVE ONE were all included in the lineup. The list mixed established leaders with rising acts and newer-generation groups, giving the ceremony a cross-section of K-pop’s current competitive landscape.
Group Awards And Popularity Categories
Beyond the Daesangs, the group categories underlined how crowded the current idol market has become. P1Harmony was named Best Male Group, while Hearts2Hearts won Best Female Group. In the fan-voted popularity categories, TXT took Best Popular Male Group and UNIS won Best Popular Female Group, showing that formal category wins and audience-voted results did not always point to the same acts.
Solo recognition also formed a notable part of the winner list. Yeonjun of TXT was named Best Popular Solo Male, extending TXT’s presence beyond group categories, while Winter of aespa received Best Popular Solo Female. Young Tak won the Best Popular Trot Award, giving the ceremony a link to Korea’s broader popular-music ecosystem beyond idol-centered categories.
Rookie and emerging-artist prizes added another layer to the results. LNGSHOT and ALPHA DRIVE ONE received the New Artist Award, while LNGSHOT was also named Global Rising Star. NEWBEAT and VVUP won KM Next Potential, MODYSSEY received KM Spotlight, and Hi-Fi Un!corn was named KM Band Icon. Those categories suggested that the event was not only rewarding chart leaders but also identifying acts positioned for wider attention.
A Snapshot Of K-Pop’s 2026 Awards Field
The full list of winners reflected an awards season shaped by both established brand power and aggressive next-generation growth. Groups such as BTS and TXT continue to anchor the upper tier of major Korean music ceremonies, but newer names including CORTIS, Hearts2Hearts, KickFlip, ALPHA DRIVE ONE and LNGSHOT are increasingly appearing beside them in main-prize and rookie categories.
For TXT, the result strengthens a year already defined by visible public support and major-award recognition. For BTS, Hwasa and CORTIS, the Daesang wins reinforce different forms of success: album-scale impact, song-level resonance and record-focused achievement. For the broader field, the KM Chart Awards 2026 offered a compact view of how Korean pop recognition is now spread across fandom voting, streaming-era performance, genre-specific categories and industry attention to emerging acts.
The ceremony’s winner list may also shape how fans and industry watchers read the rest of the 2026 awards calendar. With several major names sharing top honors and a large slate of rising artists gaining formal recognition, the season is likely to remain competitive across group, solo, rookie and popularity divisions.
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