Photo: AFP
The number of rock music videos with a billion views on YouTube continues to climb in recent years, but Guns N' Roses just made history with their "November Rain" video becoming the first pure rock video to hit 2 billion views on the streaming platform. The impressive milestone comes a little more than 13 year after the band uploaded the 1991 video on YouTube on December 25, 2009.
As Consequence points out, videos from other rock-leaning acts have already surpassed 2 billion views on YouTube — Imagine Dragons’ “Believer” has 2.3 billion views, and Coldplay’s “Something Just Like This” EDM collaboration with The Chainsmokers has 2.1 billion views — but GNR is the first true rock band to achieve the impressive feat.
That being said, there are two other rock videos that are getting close to the 2 billion mark. Linkin Park’s “Numb” currently has 1.9 billion views and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” has 1.6 billion.
Revisit GNR's iconic video below.
In other GNR news, Slash recently admitted that "most of everything that [Guns N’ Roses] did would’ve gotten us cancelled in this day and age" when talking about the band's heyday and why he decided to leave some of his more scandalous anecdotes out of his new book.