Two decades after it became a mantra of late-’80s pop – and rode the charts in over a dozen countries around the world, hitting 1 in more than half of them – “Never Gonna Give You Up” by British hitmaker Rick Astley took on a YouTube life of its own in 2008, when the classic video sparked the ‘Rickrolling’ phenom as a viral Internet meme. To date, according to SurveyUSA, as many as 18 million Americans have been ‘Rickrolled,’ with more than 30 million views registered at YouTube alone.
“You’ve been Rickrolled!” was a punch-line that Internet users around the world actually began seeing in 2007, when – instead of being connected to the Web link they had clicked on – they were connected to the video clip posted on YouTube for “Never Gonna Give You Up.” American audiences picked up on it as far back as June 2007, when Carson Daly ‘Rickrolled’ his audience one night with the video.
PLAYLIST: THE VERY BEST OF RICK ASTLEY puts the spotlight back on the 42-year old singer and songwriter. He was famously ‘discovered’ by Pete Water¬man of London’s Stock Aitken Waterman songwriting-production team, who had been churning out dozens of hit records since 1984. Their UK-based track record encom¬passed Dead Or Alive, Bananarama, Jason Donovan, Kylie Minogue, Samantha Fox, Mel & Kim, and more than a hundred other acts, including Rick Astley.
“Never Gonna Give You Up,” Rick Astley’s debut single as a solo artist, entered the UK chart in August 1987, hit 1, and was followed by “Whenever You Need Some¬body” in October, which went to 3. The album Whenever You Need Somebody easily hit the 1 spot when it was released in November. By the time the third UK single was issued in December (a cover of Doris Day’s “When I Fall In Love” b/w the non-album track “My Arms Keep Missing You”), the U.S. was finally entering the picture.
“Never Gonna Give You Up” debuted here on the Hot 100 in December 1987, and took a long three months (until March 1988) to reach 1, where it stayed for two weeks. In the interim, the album was released in the U.S. in January. Back in the UK, the fourth single there was issued in February, “Together Forever,” which rose to 2. The song entered the Hot 100 here in April, but this time took a faster two months on its way to 1 in June. In the U.S. only, “It Would Take A Strong Strong Man” came out as the first album’s final single pick in July, and rose to 10, eventually bringing the album to RIAA double platinum.
Rick Astley was a bonafide global superstar by the end of 1988, when his second RCA album was issued in December, the RIAA gold Hold Me In Your Arms (“She Wants To Dance With Me,” “Take Me To Your Heart,” “Don’t Say Goodbye,” “I Don’t Want To Lose Her,” “Giving Up On Love,” “Hold Me In Your Arms”). Among his countless honors was a Grammy Award nomination for Best New Artist.
But Hold Me also marked Rick Astley’s final outing with Stock Aitken Water¬man, as he chose to develop his own talents as a songwriter and producer. He issued two more albums on RCA: 1991’s Free (“Cry For Help”) and 1993’s Body & Soul (“Hopelessly”). By that time, it was estimated his worldwide sales of studio albums, hits compilations, singles, and videos totaled 40 million copies. He had been forever ingrained in pop culture. Although various albums and singles and television projects have followed over the next decade and a half, nothing compares to the attention Rick Astley has received in 2007 and 2008 as a result of ‘Rickrolling.”
“I don’t mean to belittle it, because I still think it’s a great pop song,” he said of “Never Gonna Give You Up,” in his typically understated manner, to David Sarno of the Los Angeles Times. “But it’s a pop song, do you know what I mean?”
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