Rick Astley

Born on 6 February 1966 in Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire, England, Rick Astley will always be remembered for his 1987 smash "Never Gonna Give You Up," which topped charts all over the world and was the best-selling single of the year, but he is still held in the highest regard in the world of pop. Starting out playing drums in clubs with the band FBI, he rocketed to fame after getting a job at the studio of hit-making production team Mike Stock, Matt Aitken, and Pete Waterman. They soon put him in the studio and the result was the dance-floor filler "Never Gonna Give You Up." Rick Astley's rich vocals and boy-next-door personality endeared him to fans and he became a major teen idol, racking up further hits with "Whenever You Need Somebody," "Together Forever" and a cover of the Nat King Cole ballad "When I Fall in Love." The hits gradually faded and at the age of 27, he announced his retirement from music. After ten years out, Astley returned to music with brand new album Keep It Turned On in 2001. A Greatest Hits record was also released, reaching number 16 in the UK Albums Chart. He went out on tour for the first time in over a decade and released an album of standards titled Portrait. In 2008 he was awarded the Best Act Ever accolade at the MTV Europe Music Awards after an online campaign pushed his music once more; as a result of this "Never Gonna Give You Up" returned to the charts. He toured with Boy George and Belinda Carlisle as part of the 1980s Here and Now Tour in 2009 and was revealed as a special guest on comedian Peter Kay's national tour in 2010. A brand new single, "Lights Out," was released in 2010, charting at number 15 in the UK Airplay Charts. "Keep Singing," the lead single from his eighth album 50, was released in 2016, followed by "Dance." His ninth album was released in 2018 under the title Beautiful Life. Another greatest hits collection, The Best of Me, arrived in 2019 and reached Number 4 on the UK Albums Chart. In July 2021—largely thanks to the viral Internet meme phenomenon called 'rickrolling' that continuously propelled the song back into the spotlight—"Never Gonna Give You Up" notched up a record-breaking one billion views on YouTube, becoming the fourth 1980s song to reach this milestone. In 2023, Rick Astley released his first new album in five years, the classic soul-inspired Are We There Yet?

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