Some four decades after it was first released and more than 20 years before the streaming platform even existed, Rick Astley‘s 1987 hit song “Never Gonna Give You Up” has surpassed 1,000,000,000 Spotify streams.
In a statement about the the song’s popularity, the now 59-year old Astley said:
“I never could have imagined back in 1987 that ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ would still be going strong decades later.” “Thanks to streaming platforms, a whole new generation has been able to discover music like mine. Reaching 1 billion streams is something I never dreamed of and to everyone who’s ever listened, thank you.”
Upon its initial release, ‘Never Gonna …’ went #1 on more than twenty international charts, spending five weeks atop of the UK charts and two weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100.
In 2020 “… Give You Up” was certified platinum in England and double platinum three years later. It was certified five times platinum in the United States and the video has been watched 1,600,000,000 times on YouTube.
Produced by Stock, Aitken and Waterman, the song reached a whole new generation in later years thanks to the Rickrolling phenomenon which is a online joke played on unsuspecting folks who click on a hyperlink about anything unrelated to Astley only to be taken to the music video for the song.
Not his only hit, Astley had a string of successes in the late ’80s, including “Together Forever,” “It Would Take a Strong Strong Man” and “She Wants to Dance With Me.” The British-born singer retired from the music business in 1993 to spend time with family and mounted a comeback in 2016 with the album 50, which went #1 in the U.K. Rick performed at the Glastonbury Festival in 2023 as well as other venues around the world, and in 2024, he released a memoir, Never: The Autobiography.
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Author: Saul Goode
Photo: Wjack12