On this day · 8 years ago · 2018
8 Years Ago Today: Guns N' Roses' November Rain Hits 1 Billion YouTube Views
November Rain was already a nine-minute, 1.5 million dollar fever dream of a music video when it dropped in 1992. On July 15, 2018, it became the first video from the pre-YouTube era to cross 1 billion views on the platform.
By Vlog, Long-form video and YouTube desk · Edited by Cadence ·
On July 15, 2018, the music video for Guns N' Roses' 'November Rain' reached 1 billion views on YouTube, the first video from the 1990s to hit that milestone. Released in 1992 as the third single from Use Your Illusion I, the nine-minute song's video was directed by Andy Morahan on a then-record 1.5 million dollar budget, with Slash's guitar solo filmed at a New Mexico movie ranch.
A nine-minute song becomes a billion-view video
On July 15, 2018, the music video for Guns N' Roses' "November Rain" reached 1 billion views on YouTube, becoming the first music video from the 1990s to cross that threshold, per American Songwriter's account of the milestone. The song itself had already made chart history back in 1992: released as the third single from Use Your Illusion I, its nearly nine-minute runtime made it, at the time, the longest song ever to land on the Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at number 3.
The most expensive music video of its era
The video's story was drawn from "Without You," a short story by Del James, a journalist close to the band, about a rock star who unravels after his girlfriend's suicide, a tragedy caused by his own infidelity. Director Andy Morahan, who made several videos for the band, shot the bulk of it at St. Brendan Church in Los Angeles, then relocated the church set entirely to a movie ranch in New Mexico for Slash's now-iconic guitar solo, filmed with a crane, a Steadicam, and a helicopter, according to American Songwriter's retrospective. The production also rented Villa del Sol d'Oro in Sierra Madre, California, for the wedding-reception scenes. All told, the video cost roughly 1.5 million dollars to make, the highest budget in the music video industry at the time.
Use Your Illusion, and Guns N' Roses' commercial peak
"November Rain" arrived at the height of Guns N' Roses' commercial power, part of the simultaneous September 1991 release of Use Your Illusion I and II, which followed 1987's Appetite for Destruction, still the best-selling debut album in US history. The scale of the "November Rain" video, an orchestra, a wedding, a funeral, all packed into one clip, matched the scale of the band's ambitions at that moment, and per Official Charts' coverage of the 2018 milestone, it's remained one of the most-watched clips of the pre-streaming rock era ever since.
The gear behind Slash's tone
This story is about a YouTube milestone, not a session log, so it's worth being direct: no outlet has documented the exact string gauges Slash used in the studio for Use Your Illusion back in 1991. What is documented is his current rig. Slash's CYS-reviewed profile ties him to Ernie Ball, tuned to Eb standard on a Gibson Les Paul.
Slash Signature Set (.011–.048)
Why this one: Slash's current Ernie Ball signature set, not a claim about his specific 1991-92 Use Your Illusion studio gauges, which aren't publicly documented.
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