No, you have not been "Rick-Rolled"... this is a serious question.

I remember when I first heard "Never Gonna Give You Up" back in '86. I thought, hmmm, pretty cool song. Then I saw him on MTV and was like, "Whoa! This guy looks twelve! Where'd he get a voice like that?!?"

Now he's become this big joke, "Rick-Rolled", etc... and I'm wondering what happened to him.

So I googled. Here's the answer:

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Born Richard Paul Astley in 1966, he was brought up in the small town of Newton-Le-Willows in Lancashire.

Left school at 16 and later drove a delivery van for his family's garden centre business.

Formed a band called Give Way with friends and later joined a band called FBI who released a single called "Car Jam".

Pete Waterman heard Rick singing in 1985 in Warrington and invited him to work at his studio. This involved various jobs including making the tea.

Released the single "Never Gonna Give You Up" in the summer of 1987 which went to number one in the UK and was the biggest selling single of the year.

He then released the single "Whenever You Need Somebody" followed by an album of the same name.

He also had hit singles with "When I Fall In Love", "Together Forever", "She Wants To Dance With Me" and a second album "Hold Me In Your Arms".

After saying he wanted to be considered a serious singer/songwriter, he split from his producers, Stock, Aitken and Waterman and went on to release a third album called "Free".

His single "Never Knew Love" peaked at number 70 in 1991.

In 1993, he released the album "Body And Soul" which along with a couple of singles, flopped in the UK, but was fairly successful in America.

He then disappeared from the public eye in the 1990s amidst rumours that he couldn't handle the fame.

After living in Gloucestershire for a couple of years, Rick settled down in Richmond in Surrey with his Danish girlfriend Lene Bausager. They now have a daughter called Emilie.

Recorded demos in his studio in Fulham.

After being out of the public eye for 8 years, in 2002 he released the album "Keep It On" and a Greatest Hits album shortly after.

Following his sell-out UK tour of 2004, Rick has signed a recording deal with Sony BMG and in September 2005 is due to release a new album.

Rick will be singing live at the Henley Music and Arts Festival in July 2005 and will be touring the UK later in the year.

In February, you can hear Rick on Ken Bruce's morning show on Radio 2 and he will also join the BBC Concert Orchestra on the programme "Friday Night Is Music Night" in the same month.

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In the meantime, enjoy this:

Do you know he just won Best Act Ever at the MTV Europe Music Awards?

Really? Wow.

for some reason i cant stand that song "never gonna give you up" anymore. as a child i didnt mind it but it got played to death over here. good to see hes still doing his thing.

I hate that he has been considered a joke. The guy had a really good voice. Very distinctive.

He morphed into Robin Thicke.
Ba dum dum!

http://bringvictory.com/

there's a really nice interview with him here.

MagnificentVoodoo said:

Man, if I get rick rolled...

this review of his career is a bit out of date. About 2 years ago he released "Portrait", an album of covers... not bad in my opinion. It included the song Vincent by.... I can't remember

tritoncin said:

^^ Don Mclean?

A Rick Astley thread that I didn't create

I saw him recently, the best act ever (lol). Such a cutie.

daPrettyman said:

Co-sign! People who make fun of him have usually only heard and seen a couple of his SAW 80's stuff and have never taken the time to actually listen.
One of my fav voices.

tritoncin said:

So, update us! Is there something new that I missed in my google search?

June7 said:

Um...yeah, the official site that I posted above.

I knew together forever and never gonna give you up for many years and always thought they were so irritating and sounded alike. I even saw a rick astley lunchbox a few years ago at a store and cracked up

alphastreet said:

Lunchbox?? Although I'd lie if I said I wouldn't be tempted to spend some cash on it...

You should check out "Body & Soul" from '93. Very soulful and nothing like his 80's tunes. Superb.

Jestyr said:

Um...yeah, I didn't read that far down before I posted that.

Oh my lord.


This is definitely going on my end of Year Report card thread!



Wasn't he that skinny kid with a deep voice?

Moonbeam said:

PANDURITO said:

That's correct, but that was because a few gossip websites found it amusing to rig the voting and ask their readers to vote for Rick. He knew and didn't show up to pick up the award.

June7 said:

Well I hope I learned ya up good.

He was just on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

SCNDLS said:

I just saw him there too. I was like WTF?

purplecam said:

Fo REAL! I heard the music before I saw him and just knew it was gonna be somebody else singing. It was nice to see him. He sounded the same. Not surprising since he was lipsynching to the original song.

In all its cringeworthy glory!

http://www.youtube.com/wa...bfNgekJG4M

Rico said:

I can't believe he did that! There's something very wrong about it
But I'm glad to see he's getting more attention now, he deserves it being one of the mosty underrated artists I know.

VenusBlingBling said:

Yeah, but why did he dye his hair black? Doesn't fit him... looks weird.