Melon Music Award for Song of the Year

The Melon Music Award for Song of the Year is one of the awards from the annual Melon Music Awards, an event that uses data from Melon's streaming service to celebrate artists who have had exceptional performance during the year.^[1] The Song of the Year category recognizes the top performing single in South Korea based on various metrics such as digital performance, voting, and judge evaluation.

From 2005 to 2008, awards for best song of the year were based entirely on online voting and were announced on Melon's website. Live ceremonies began in Seoul starting in 2009, with Song of the Year becoming one of the ceremonies' daesang (grand prize) awards.^[2][3] The award is determined through several criteria; as of 2021, 60% of the evaluation is based on figures for digital downloads and streaming, 20% from the evaluation of a panel of judges, and 20% from online voting.^[4]

The artist with the most Song of the Year awards is BTS, having won four times in 2017, 2019, 2020 and 2021 with "Spring Day", "Boy with Luv", "Dynamite" and "Butter", respectively. Wonder Girls received the award twice during its online period, with "Tell Me" and "So Hot" receiving the most votes in 2007 and 2008, respectively. IU has the most nominations in the category with seven nominations, winning once for "Good Day" in 2011.