System of a Down’s “Chop Suey!” Reaches One Billion YouTube Views

The music video for System of a Down’s “Chop Suey!” has surpassed the one billion view mark on YouTube, putting it in elite company. The video was first released in 2001 and uploaded to YouTube in 2009.

While a number of pop artists have crossed the threshold, System of a Down are one of only a handful of heavier rock acts to have a video hit one billion views, joining Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Guns N’ Roses’ “November Rain,” Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Linkin Park’s “Numb” and “In The End.”

Since its release, the song has gone on to attract an audience well beyond the confines of the metal and hard rock worlds. In June, a video of a wedding party in Nigeria moshing to the track went viral.

Congrats to System for this incredible achievement! You can watch (or re-watch) the video below.

System of a Down released their first new pieces of music in 15 years, “Protect The Land” and “Genocidal Humanoidz,” earlier this month. The four band members put their longstanding creative differences aside to record the two new songs, which served as a political statement to raise awareness around the recently reignited conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the territory of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabagh). The band was able to raise more than $600k in donations from the two songs to benefit Armenians whose lives have been affected by the war. The songs landed at #1 and #2, respectively, on Billboard’s Hot Hard Rock Songs chart for the week ending November 12.