Rick Astley

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Richard Paul Astley (born February 6, 1966) is an English dance-pop singer, songwriter and musician. He was born in Newton-le-Willows, St Helens, Lancashire, England. Astley currently resides in Richmond, Surrey with his Danish girlfriend, Lene Bausager, and their daughter, Emilie.

In 1985, Astley was playing the club circuit as a singer with a soul band named FBI, when he was seen by the record producer Pete Waterman and persuaded to come to London to work at the PWL recording studio. Under the tutelage of production trio Stock Aitken Waterman, Astley was taught about the recording process and groomed for his future career, supposedly starting off as the recording studio ‘tea boy’. During much of his career prior to the proliferation of music videos, many listeners assumed he was black. In one instance, the comedic entertainer, Sinbad, discussed him with a talk-show host, expressing his surprise that Astley was not “one of the brothers.” Even after his visual appearance, it was still popular belief that he was miming for a black American singer. His brother Mark Astley helped to refute this assertion.

His first single was the little-known “When You Gonna” credited to Rick & Lisa, but his first solo outing was “Never Gonna Give You Up,” released in 1987. It became an immediate success, spending five weeks at the top of the British charts and becoming the year’s highest-selling single. It was the first of no fewer than 13 (world-wide) Top 30 hit singles for him.
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Popular tags: pop, 80s, rickroll, dance, best act ever  See more

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  • redsun9

    Never gonna let rickroll me)

    Wednesday evening
  • DJSMusicfactory

    Rick 4ever!!! Groove on!!! :-)

    Tuesday afternoon
  • groovez0ne

    Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down Never gonna run around and desert you Never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you...

    Saturday evening
  • DJSMusicfactory

    Classic!!! :-)

    last week
  • Relative_Degree

    C'mon! we can do this! || Never gonna give you up!

    last week
  • mattrockrob

    Rick = God of Pop

    12 days ago
  • k_ingsoc

    Happy B-Day Rick!!

    18 days ago
  • Lycidias

    Never gonna tell you lies!

    19 days ago
  • JosephGrappe

    Never gonna give you up :)

    last month
  • edhuizar

    Never gonna troll you up...

    last month
  • LothlorienQueen

    never gonna give you up, just rickroll

    last month
  • Rain199

    ~ Never gonna give you up ~

    last month
  • Aklicmoney

    i dont get it, is he Micheal Jackson are something

    last month
  • maplejet

    "I cannot believe that people are asking who Michael Jackson is... " Michael Jackson is a basketball player for the Knicks.

    last month
  • PewPlasticine

    I cannot believe that people don't know what trolling is

    last month
  • Perrysgirl47

    I cannot believe that people are asking who Michael Jackson is...

    last month
  • VelvetMesgue

    Trolololololo

    last month
  • somemusicdude

    Michael Jackson was an American pop singer.

    last month
  • Lobo_Lopez

    Here's a song by a gay guy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIyhf552sV0

    last month
  • Its_bitch

    Who's Michael Jackson?

    last month
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You’ve Been RickRolled!

29 Jul 2008 | from blog.myspace.com/rickastley

"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 – …

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