Guns N’ Roses’ ‘November Rain’ video sets YouTube record

Guns N’ Roses’ ‘November Rain’ has become the first song from the 1990s to hit one billion views on YouTube.

The lavish nine-minute video, which reportedly cost $1.5million to make back in 1992, is also the first music video from the pre-YouTube era and the 20th Century to reach the one billion milestone.

According to Forbes, the Andy Morahan directed video for the ‘Use Your Illusion I’ track amassed 560,000 views a day in 2017 as it raced towards the 10-figure tally.

The closest rivals to ‘November Rain’ from the 1990s are The Craberries’ ‘Zombie’ in second spot (739million views) and Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ (727million views).

The ‘November Rain’ video portrays Axl Rose marrying his then girlfriend Stephanie Seymour and features clips of the band performing in a theatre together with swooping helicopter shots of Slash performing his epic guitar solo.

It won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Cinematography in 1992.

Testament to Guns N’ Roses’ enduring popularity, the band also have the most-viewed 1980s video on YouTube with ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ (694million views).

The rockers will have to go a long way to eclipse the most-watched music video on YouTube; Luis Fonsi’s ‘Despacito’ has been watched more than 5.1billion times.