Guns N’ Roses: Sweet Child O’ Mine hits 1bn YouTube views

Guns N’ Roses’ power ballad Sweet Child O’ Mine has become the first music video from the 1980s to hit one billion views on YouTube.

The 1987 track, which appeared on their debut album Appetite for Destruction, averaged 590,000 daily views this year.

It means the US rockers are now the video streaming site’s top band of both the 80s and 90s.

Their 1992 hit November Rain remains the only video from that decade to make the “billion views club”.

Their band now boasts more than 6.7 million YouTube subscribers, while Appetite For Destruction is still the best-selling US debut album ever, shifting more than 30 million copies worldwide.

Other contemporary acts like Cyndi Lauper, The Police and Michael Jackson now have some catching up to do, with A-ha looking the most likely.

YouTube’s top five music videos from the 1980s

1. Guns N’ Roses – Sweet Child O’ Mine – 1bn
2. A-ha – Take On Me – 943m
3. Cyndi Lauper – Girls Just Want To Have Fun – 786m
4. The Police – Every Breath You Take – 699m
5. Michael Jackson – Billie Jean – 694m

This summer, the 1970s Queen classic Bohemian Rhapsody became the oldest video to reach the landmark 1bn figure.

Psy’s Gangnam Style was the first video to manage the feat in 2012 and has now had more than 3.4bn views.

For now though, Luis Fonsi looks safe at the top of YouTube’s all-time most-watched video list, with the audio-visuals for Despacito having received more than 6.4bn plays. – bbc.com