Ceremonies of the 19th Golden Melody Awards were held in Taipei, Taiwan in 2008. Nominees were announced on May 22, 2008, and the award winners in 12 traditional music categories (of 47 nominees) and 23 popular music categories (of 124 nominees) were selected by a panel of 33 judges after four rounds of jury meetings. Initially, there were 10,632 submissions from 185 companies in the music industry, making it the largest submission pool in the Awards' history. Winners for artistic and traditional music categories were announced on June 21, 2008, at Taipei County Hall in a ceremony separate from that for popular music categories. It was the second consecutive year that the ceremony for this category group was held separately, and it did not attract as much media attention as the ceremony for the popular music categories. By contrast, artists from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, and Canada attended the awards ceremony for popular music categories, which was held at the Taipei Arena on July 5, 2008. Actress sisters Barbie and Dee Shu, former news anchor Patty Hou, and actress Matilda Tao hosted this event, whose list of award presenters included Canadian recording artist Daniel Powter and Japanese drama stars Akito Kiriyama, Junta Nakama, and Yuya Takaki. Both events were broadcast on the satellite cable Azio Television channel on June 28 and July 5, respectively. Malaysian singer Gary Chaw and Singaporean singer-songwriter Tanya Chua were named Best Mandarin Male and Female Singers in the popular music category, respectively. Chua won the Best Mandarin Female Singer award for the second time; she last won the award in the 17th Golden Melody Awards. Chua's record seven nominations for her album Goodbye & Hello are the most received by a female artist. Taiwanese musician and singer Jay Chou, who received a record-breaking eight nominations for his album On the Run and film Secret, was not able to attend the event due to his tour in China. Chou's primary lyricist Vincent Fang was present to receive the award of Best Lyricist for the song "Blue and White Porcelain". Pop rock band Sodagreen received its second consecutive award as Best Band for its album Incomparable Beauty.

Nominees and winners

Winners are listed first and highlighted in boldface.

Popular music categories

Best song

Best Mandarin album

Best Taiwanese album

Best Hakka album

Best aboriginal album

Ipay Buyci is a self-titled album in the Atayal language.

Best composer

Best lyricist

Best arrangement

Best album producer

Best single producer

Best mandarin male singer

Best taiwanese male singer

Best mandarin female singer

Best taiwanese female singer

Best hakka singer

Best aboriginal singer

Ipay Buyci, the winner of this category, is a member of the ethnic Atayal people.

Best band

Best singing group

Best newcomer

Best instrumental album

Best instrumental album producer

Best instrumental composer

Best music video director

Lifetime contribution award

Artistic and traditional music categories

Best traditional music album

Best classical music album

Best children's music album

Best religious music album

Best crossover music album

Best songwriter

Best lyricist

Best composer

Best producer

Best traditional music interpretation

Best vocalist

Best music performer

Jury special mention

Lifetime contribution award

Presenters and performers

Presenters

Presenters for the popular music categories at the ceremony:

Performers

There were six performance segments during the ceremony: