All of Ulala Session's 1deungdeul Stages Are Now in One Video

MBC has released the complete stage compilation of Ulala Session's performances from the network's hit competition series 1deungdeul (1등들, The Number Ones), gathering all six of the legendary vocal group's broadcasts into a single, clean-version video. For fans who watched the group's unexpected elimination in April and felt the story ended too soon, the compilation offers a chance to revisit every moment from the beginning.

The release arrives on the MBC Entertainment YouTube channel as part of the network's ongoing practice of compiling clean-cut performance footage from the series for audiences who want to watch specific artists without interruption. Featured on the playlist: six of the performances that defined Ulala Session's run on the show — Miiin, The Clown Is Laughing at Us, Mom, Run Devil Run, Short Hair, and The Twist of Love.

Who Are Ulala Session, and Why Does This Matter

To understand why Ulala Session's 1deungdeul run generated the reaction it did, it helps to know where the group came from. Ulala Session won Mnet's Superstar K Season 3 in 2011, claiming the title with a combination of raw vocal power, harmonically rich arrangements, and a performance style that felt simultaneously theatrical and deeply sincere. They were not the expected winner entering the finals — and their victory was one of the more genuinely moving moments in the history of Korean idol competition programming.

What followed the win made their legacy even more poignant. Lead vocalist Lim Yoon-taek passed away in January 2013 after a battle with stomach cancer, a loss that hit the Korean entertainment community hard and elevated the group's legacy to something more permanent than chart performance alone could have achieved. Ulala Session has continued performing in the years since, but Lim's absence has remained a constant presence in how audiences receive their music.

Returning to competitive television more than a decade after their Superstar K victory, the group brought that full history with them onto the 1deungdeul stage. Every performance carried emotional weight that contestants with shorter histories simply could not match — and the audience responded accordingly.

What 1deungdeul Actually Is — and Why It Works

1deungdeul is one of the more cleverly designed competition formats in recent Korean broadcasting history. Rather than searching for new talent, the show assembles past winners from major Korean singing competitions — Superstar K, Voice Korea, Mister Trot, Singer Gain, and others — and sets them against one another in a series of head-to-head elimination battles. The concept inverts the usual premise of talent discovery: these artists have already proven themselves. The question is simply who is best.

That framing creates a different kind of competitive tension. Viewers are not rooting for unknowns but for artists they already have emotional histories with. When Ulala Session performed Mom and the audience scores reflected that connection, it was not a surprise — it was a confirmation of something fans already knew. The show's format, built around audience voting and head-to-head matchups, consistently produced moments where the stakes felt genuinely high despite the performers' established reputations.

The group earned strong scores through much of their run before falling short of the 151-vote threshold needed to continue in the April elimination. Finishing below that line alongside fellow contestant Baek Cheong-kang, their departure sent a visible shock through the studio audience and the viewer community watching at home.

The Six Performances: A Complete Picture

The compiled footage covers the full breadth of what Ulala Session brought to 1deungdeul. Miiin served as one of their signature showpieces — a performance that leaned into the theatrical energy the group has always excelled at delivering. The Clown Is Laughing at Us, one of the most emotionally layered songs in their catalog, tested the live arrangement and came through with the power audiences expected.

Mom, perhaps the most personally resonant choice given the group's history, was the performance that many fans identified as the emotional high point of their 1deungdeul run. Run Devil Run showed a different dimension — a harder-edged, high-energy reading that demonstrated the group's stylistic range. Short Hair and The Twist of Love rounded out the set with performances that balanced nostalgia and contemporary presence in equal measure.

Watching them back to back in the clean compilation removes the competitive context and allows the performances to exist purely as music — which, in many ways, is the most honest version of what Ulala Session has always been about.

The Show's Larger Narrative — and What Comes Next

After the April eliminations, 1deungdeul moved into its final stage with four contestants: Son Seung-yeon (Voice Korea Season 1), Lee Ye-jun (Voice Korea Season 2), Ahn Sung-hoon (Mister Trot 2), and Huh Gak (Superstar K Season 2). The finale generated significant viewer discussion, with audiences debating which of the four deserved the title of the number one among number ones.

For Ulala Session, the elimination was a chapter closed — but the compilation video ensures their contribution to the season is preserved in accessible form. MBC's approach of releasing clean performance edits has built a significant archive of the show's most memorable moments, and Ulala Session's six-stage run is among the most complete and emotionally consistent contributions any single act made to the series.

The group's 1deungdeul full stage compilation is available now on the MBC Entertainment YouTube channel. The video runs at over 22 minutes in its clean, uninterrupted format — long enough to feel, by the end, like something close to a proper concert retrospective.