ALPHA DRIVE ONE's 'BORN DIRE' hits 21M YouTube views, tops Bugs and Japan iTunes K-pop chart

BORN DIRE crossed 21 million cumulative YouTube views by midnight on August 28. That's four days after ALPHA DRIVE ONE released their second mini album, UNBREAKABLE : 少年BEAST, on August 24.

The title track claimed No. 1 on Bugs' real-time chart and No. 1 on Japan iTunes' K-POP Top Songs chart. On Japan Line Music, BORN DIRE landed 2nd on both the Real-time Top 100 and New Song Top 100. The album itself hit 2nd on the Japan Oricon Daily Album Ranking for two straight days through the 26th, 2nd on Japan Line Music's Album Top 100, and 1st on China QQ Music's digital album EP daily chart. All seven tracks entered Melon's HOT100 chart for two consecutive days after release.

August 27 brought their first music broadcast stages for the album. They performed BORN DIRE and B-side Diamond Hour (Standing Ver.) on Mnet's M Countdown. A day earlier, on August 25, they showed up on Mnet digital studio M2's Studio Choom YouTube channel for a BORN DIRE performance, then delivered a band live version of Diamond Hour on the it's Live YouTube channel the same day. Diamond Hour is a hip-hop R&B track that samples Jeon Yu-na's 사랑이라는 건.

The BORN DIRE choreography came from global choreographers Sienna Lalau and Nick Joseph. The music video features large-scale scenes with over 100 mega crew members. Global dance team The Stories collaborated on the production — they won the dance competition VIBE in both 2024 and 2026, becoming the first Korean team to win in 2024.

Also on the 27th, ALPHA DRIVE ONE attended the 2026 K World Dream Awards at KINTEX in Goyang, Gyeonggi. They took home the K World Dream Artist Award and K World Dream Super Rookie Award. That brings their cumulative award count to 10 since debuting this year. The album depicts the growing pains of youth wavering under prejudice and stigma.