YMMV / Rick Astley

• Awesome Music:
  • "Never Gonna Give You Up". It's REALLY catchy and you can't deny that it's a great singalong. Probably one of the best songs to have a Memetic Mutation.
    • The Eurobeat cover by Kevin Johnson.
    • The live performance with Foo Fighters. Amusingly, it starts off sounding like Smells like Teen Spirit, before the band pulls a Bait-and-Switch.
    • This rendition turns the song into an anime opening theme. Bonus points that the lyrics are actually in Japanese.
    • In the music video, that bartender can really bust some moves.
  • His cover of "Uptown Funk" at Let's Rock London. He takes a current pop hit and nails it.
  • Outside of the memes, "Whenever You Need Somebody" shows Astley putting his all into his vocal track.
• Covered Up: Astley's rendition of "Whenever You Need Somebody" was much more successful than the first recording of it by O'Chi Brown, peaking at No. 3 on the UK Singles chart (in addition to hitting the top 5 in 11 other countries) compared to the Brown version's much more modest 97. Additionally, while Brown's take on the song became a No. 1 hit on the American dance charts, the Astley version would eclipse it in public recognition worldwide once the Rickrolling phenomenon brought him back into the public eye, in large part because its opening is almost identical to that of "Never Gonna Give You Up".
• Discredited Meme: The Rickrolling meme has gotten so overused that Astley has stated at least once that he's tired of it. Because of its polarizing nature and debates over whether or not it's a "dead meme" or a "timeless meme", it's not uncommon for works to mock the meme.
• Epic Riff: That start of "Never Gonna Give You Up". Once you hear it, you know you've been rickrolled.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Prior to the Rickroll, Filipinos adore his other song "Together Forever". The song is on dance and videoke playlists, has covered by a local artist or two, and has been featured on a vitamin commercial.
• Heartwarming Moments: Together Forever. Think a diabetic version of Rickroll.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • One of the singles from his second album is called "Giving Up On Love." Yes, despite him singing that he was "Never Gonna Give You Up."
  • The 2.B.A. Master album from the Pokémon anime also features a song called "Together Forever," and the dance pop instrumentals sound just like a Rick Astley song.
• I Am Not Shazam: Thanks to the Rick Rolling meme, casual people tend to refer to Astley as "Rick Roll" or calling the actual song "Rick Roll".
• Memetic Mutation: No prizes for guessing which one.
• Narm Charm: Listen to the lyrics of "NGGYU". It's campy. It's sappy. It's ridiculous. It's so, so very 80's. And it's awesome. It helps that it's an ear worm.
  • The video is both utterly ridiculous and monumentally great, especially the frequent cutaways to an excitable bartender who gets so into the dancing that he ultimately puts on tiny shorts, backflips off a wall, and strikes a goofy pose.
• Presumed Flop: People often think Rick was a One-Hit Wonder, but he actually wasn't. "Together Forever" also hit #1 in the US.
• Signature Song:
  • "Never Gonna Give You Up". Thanks to the viral "Rickroll" phenomenon, it also surpassed one billion views on YouTube.
  • "Together Forever" also hit #1 and it actually used to be his most well known song (in America at least) until the Rick Roll phenomenon made his first hit his indisputable signature tune.
• Song Association:
  • "Never Gonna Give You Up".
  • Some Casio keyboard models such as the CA-100 came with a demo version of "Together Forever" played with the keyboard's samples.
• The Woobie: That poor saxophonist in "Take Me To Your Heart" just wants a bit part...

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