“Never Gonna Give You Up” is the debut single recorded by English singer and songwriter Rick Astley, released in 1987, 1st single in debut album Whenever You Need Somebody. The song was a worldwide #1 hit, in the UK in 1987, best-selling single of that year, it went on to top the charts in 25 countries, including the US and was the Best British Single at the Brit Awards in 1988.
In 2008, Astley won the MTV Europe Music Award for Best Act Ever with the song, as a result of collective voting from thousands of people on the Internet, due to the Rickrolling meme. The song is considered Astley’s signature song and it is often played at the end of his live concerts. The music video for the song has become the basis for the “Rickrolling” Internet meme, in which a user expecting entirely unrelated content is shown the video.
“Never Gonna Give You Up” was recorded at PWL Studios in South London, England.
The 1987 music video for “Never Gonna Give You Up” was filmed in London, largely around the London Borough of Harrow. Since being uploaded to YouTube on 24 October 2009, the video has received over one billion views; it surpassed that milestone on 28 July 2021, 34 years and 1 day after the song was released.
Rick Astley personally commented: “1 BILLION views for Never Gonna Give You Up! Amazing, crazy, wonderful! Rick ♥️”.
The comment was pinned and is viewable under the song video on YT.
Rickrolling
“Never Gonna Give You Up” is the subject of an Internet meme known as “rickrolling” involving misleading links (commonly shortened URLs) redirecting to the song’s music video. Originally started by users on 4chan, by May 2007, the practice had achieved notoriety on the Internet, and it increased in popularity after its use as a 2008 April Fools’ Day joke by various media companies and websites—including YouTube, which rickrolled all of its featured videos on that day—allowing people to easily rickroll their friends’ devices.
