On July 28, 2021, it passed the milestone of one billion views on YouTube. Never Gonna Give You UpRick Astley’s hit, also celebrated its 35th anniversary on Wednesday, July 27.
“Never Gonna Give You Up he turns 35 today! If he were a person, he would be old enough to be president, under US law. She really has a life of her own and I appreciate all the love, fun and laughter that surrounds her! Until the next 35 years!” the British singer tweeted.
The song, released in the middle of the summer of 1987, first made its way onto the charts at the time. Written by Matt Aitken, Mike Stock and Pete Waterman – the producer trio behind the hit You drive Me crazy by Dead or Alive – is taken from the first album of a very young 21-year-old British singer, Rick Astley.
The album, titled whenever you need someonereleased a few months later, in November 1987, and contains some other hits like whenever you need someone Where together forever. It will sell 15 million copies worldwide.
From graphics to rickrolling
But it is Never Gonna Give You Up which reached the ears of the public and became a number one in Britain in late 1987, then in many countries from 1988. Today is one of the few songs to exceed one billion views on YouTube, with Gangnam Style de Psy and, in another record, Smells like Teen Spirit of Nirvana.
However, it was not his radio appearances or album sales that sealed the fate of this hit, but the Web. A millionaire at age 24, Rick Astley retired in 1994, before attempting a comeback in 2001. But for him and for Never Gonna Give You Up It was between 2005 and 2008 that everything changed.
In 2005, first, the song resurfaced in an episode of the American series It’s always sunny in Philly. In 2006 the “duckroll” was born, a web joke born on the 4chan forum, which consists of showing an image of a duck on wheels in an unexpected way. The Internet user clicks on a link, thinking of accessing a certain content and… falls on the roulette wheel. This is “wallowing”.
“It’s weird, but it’s fun”
From duckling to rickrolling, there is only one step. It crossed over in 2007. On March 29, the first trailer for the video game was released. grand theft auto iv (GTA IV). The enthusiasm of the Internet users is such that the servers of Rockstar Games, the publisher of the game, are overheating. The trailer is inaccessible. The clever guys at 4chan then give access to a mirror site that will supposedly lead to the famous trailer. Those who click do not access GTA, but the clip of Never Gonna Give You Up.
The phenomenon really explodes a few days later, on April 1, joke day, when everyone is a “rickroller” in abundance. He ends up leaving the realm of the virtual to go outside. In 2008, the Anonymous will demonstrate in front of the Scientology facilities, singing Never Gonna Give You Up.
A little overwhelmed by the events and the scale of the phenomenon, Rick Astley finally took things in his stride. “It’s kind of weird, to be honest, to have these videos of you, young man, like this on the internet. I’m 42 now, it’s kind of weird anyway. But it’s fun,” he explained in 2008 to the Los Angeles Times.
Mocked, Celebrated, Remixed
“Never Gonna Give You Up it was mocked, celebrated, remixed (…) by a generation that was still eating mashed carrots when the song reached the top of the pop charts, ”said the American newspaper with humor.
Ten years later, in 2018, the still-alive meme shocked fans of the show. Western world. Thinking of discovering unpublished images of the second season, they had discovered Dolores, one of the heroines of the series played by Evan Rachel Wood, playing… Never Gonna Give You Up.
The title has finally taken a final step and reversed Fortnite, where a Never Gonna emote is now available. TikTok has not forgotten it either and the song is used there in more than 150,000 videos. Much more than an 80’s hit, Never Gonna Give You Up now he is a legend.
Source: BFM TV
