Ultimate Song Chart Awards

There are not one, but four major annual Cantopop music awards in Hong Kong. Different radio and TV stations run their own music award shows. These are:

• Top Ten Chinese Gold Songs Awards: This is the oldest music award in Hong Kong since 1978 run by RTHK, the public broadcaster in Hong Kong. Originally it was one of the most important and recognised music awards in Hong Kong. But RTHK made it "authoritative" (read "boring") and old-fashioned (e.g. awarding singers who well passed their prime) that it was turning away fans. In addition, since the National Security Law, the government turned RTHK from an independent broadcaster into a Communist mouthpiece 😡, further alienating fans. The only award worth noting is the Golden Needle Award, which is the lifetime achievement award in Cantopop.
• Jade Solid Gold Best 10 Awards: Organised by TVB since 1984, it was the only one run by a TV station for a long time (the other three were run by radio stations). As a result, it used to be the most watched music award show in Hong Kong. TVB tried to monopolise Cantopop by giving out awards only to contracted artists. In the bad old days when TVB was the only relevant TV station in Hong Kong (refer to my old blog if you want to learn more), this included almost every Cantopop singers in Hong Kong. However, by the late 2000s TVB was in a royalty dispute with the four major record labels, and many popular singers disappeared from the TV station. As a result, the TVB show became a "staff recognition ceremony", awarding its own artists and theme songs of its drama series only. Furthermore, TVB alienated the younger audiences with its pro-Beijing news stance since the Umbrella Revolution. So these days no one cares about this award anymore, and TVB stopped running it since 2023 (not sure if it will be resumed in future).
• Ultimate Song Chart Awards: This is run by Commercial Radio Ultimate 903 (FM 90.3-92.1) since 1989. Ultimate 903 is the most popular radio station in Hong Kong among music fans. Therefore this is the most important and talked about music award in Hong Kong, and is the subject of this blog.
• Metro Radio Hits Music Awards: After the success of the Ultimate Song Chart Awards, its rival Metro Radio holds another annual music award show since 1992. This is infamous for handing out 100 plus awards every year in which almost every attendee gets a share-out (or in Chinese it's called "dividing the pork"). While the organiser says its award is an "encouragement", it is often a subject of ridicule, and many audiences would have never heard of some of the winners.

It has been widely criticised that there are too many music awards in Hong Kong. In an effort to unify these, they handed out even more awards 😂 called the "Four-Station Joint Awards". Due to differences in music taste and conflicting interests (e.g. the TVB royalty dispute), this was stopped in 2010. Another attempt was in 2021 to combine the RTHK and TVB ones. But merging the two poorly run awards into one did not make it better, and it was stopped after only one year.

These days, there are even more music awards in Hong Kong run by music streaming platforms and other media outlets. Another emerging award is the Chill Club Chart Awards run by ViuTV, a new TV station in Hong Kong that is popular with the young audience. In this one, the majority of the awards are decided entirely by online voting, and in this year it attracted more than 200,000 voters. This is perhaps the only democratic election held in Hong Kong these days. 😢

The Ultimate Song Chart Awards Presentation is held on the evening of January 1st each year and its awards are mostly based on airplay on its station. Every year, it gives out awards to the male and female artists, groups, singer-songwriters and newcomers with the most airplay, in the form of gold, silver and bronze. It also awards the top 10 songs of the year, the most played album, and the composer/lyricist/arranger/producer with the most airplay. In addition, it runs online voting for the most popular singers and song. One special tradition is that the final award, the Most Loved Song, is voted by the live audiences of the show and the results are tallied live, leading to the climax. Tickets to the award show are not sold publicly, but given out to sponsors (after all it is called the "Commercial Radio"). Every year, fans would spend a fortune with these sponsors for a chance to get these highly sought after tickets.

This is more popular and successful than the other three because of its clear rules (the others would just hand out awards to whoever they like). The limited number of awards handed out each year make it rather difficult to win one. For example, the most popular singer with the most airplay in the year would sweep up multiple awards, leaving many others empty handed. Therefore, winning one is regarded as a career achievement (in contrast to those "pork awards" at the others).

A feature of the Hong Kong music award shows that an outsider may find unusual is that the winners are required to perform the winning songs live right after accepting the award. This means in many cases, the winners would already know the results in advance because they have rehearsed for the show. For the Ultimate Song Chart Awards, the organiser would request MMO tracks beforehand. But some artists came unprepared, and even for some experienced and talented artists, this could be quite challenging. Often they performed poorly, such as singing out of tune or missing the lyrics (watch this performance for example). Some artists may pretend to cry in disguise, though most audience would be able to see through this trick. Hence, winning an award and performing poorly afterwards can sometimes damage an artist's career or popularity.

There were accusations that the awards were not entirely based on airplay. Hardcore fans counted the exact airplay 24/7 and found discrepancy in the results. For example, an artist would almost never receive more than one Top 10 song in a single year. Two songs with identical airplay would somehow be ranked differently. Independent artists may be sacrificed and given way to the more established artists backed by major record labels.

Another criticism is that the awards are based on popularity rather than quality and merit. There is no professional judging panel from the music industry; the DJs are the judges. But whether the DJs can freely choose the songs they love to play is questionable. It is often observed that in order to promote certain artists and to manipulate the results, some songs are played repeatedly on the station, leading to a lack of diversity.

This is the list of the Song of the Year (the most played song) and the Most Loved Song (voted by the live audiences) since the beginning, together with my own comments and personal ratings. The English titles are mostly translated by Google. I included the YouTube links so you can listen to these songs too (the more recent ones are the live performances from the show).

For the Chinese JetPunkers out there, you can try my quizzes on the Ultimate Song Chart Awards:

• Ultimate Male Singers
• Ultimate Female Singers
• Ultimate Groups
• Ultimate Song of the Year Winners
• Ultimate The Most Loved Song Winners

These quizzes accept English type-ins that require first name only. If you want to test your memory, you can challenge yourself too.