The view count on Youtube for "Never Gonna Give You Up" is more than 175 million

Celebrate Rick Astley's 50th Birthday with All His Hits That Aren't 'Never Gonna Give You Up'

Depending on your age, you may be interested to know that Feb. 6 marks the 50th birthday of either pop singer Rick Astley – or as you may better know him – the British guy from that video prank meme. The two are one in the same, of course, but as a result of a strange (and apparently deathless) Internet joke, Astley boasts two very different fan bases: The people who bought his records starting in the late ’80s and the people who encountered him after being tricked into clicking on the video for his 1987 hit, “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

In case you’re totally in the dark on this one, here’s that video in all its ’80s glory.

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The view count on this video, posted in 2009 by the official Rick Astley VEVO account, is currently at more than 175 million. (For comparison’s sake, the YouTube count for Billboard‘s No. 1 song of 1987 is currently only at 8 million.)

Today, it’s hard to separate Astley from the phenomenon of rickrolling, and while we’ll talk you through the history of how this came to be a thing people did and continue to do, we’re also going to celebrate Astley’s birthday (Feb. 6) with songs that aren’t “Never Gonna Give You Up.”



Just in case you’ve ever wondered how it became a common Internet joke to drop a link, say it’s something relevant to the discussion at hand and then watch as the recipients roll their eyes in reaction to “Never Gonna Give You Up,” here’s the quick version of how it came to be.

This meme allegedly began many online absurdisms do: on the website 4chan. Initially, these joke links led to a picture of a duck on wheels, and the phenomenon was known as duckrolling. As far as we know, the first instance of Astley’s video being subbed in for another video, bait and switch-style, happened in May 2007. When the first trailer for the video game Grand Theft Auto IV drew so much traffic that it became temporarily unavailable, someone on 4chan posted a link to “Never Gonna Give You Up,” saying it was a mirror of the trailer. And rickrolling was born.

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To his credit, Astley took the meme in good humor. “Listen, I just think it’s bizarre and funny,” he told the L.A. Times in 2008. “My main consideration is that my daughter doesn’t get embarrassed about it.” And he didn’t try to capitalize on the new viral presence, explaining in the same interview that he had no desire to release a remix of the song.

He has yet to profit from all those YouTube views, too. According to a 2010 news article, he’d only received about $12 from those millions of views, though it did win him the title Best Act Ever at the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards.

He also participated in a live rickroll at the 2008 Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, when popped out of a Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends float.

And in 2009, Astley himself toasted moot, founder of 4chan, for TIME’s Most Influential People issue. “That’s one of the great things about the Internet,” Astley wrote. “Young people now have easy access to material that they ordinarily wouldn’t have been exposed to.”

The thing that the younger generation of Rick Astley fans gets wrong, however, is that he is far from a one-hit wonder. It’s just that “Never Gonna Give You Up” became omnipresent for a period to the point that the people participating in the meme didn’t know about the rest.

"Whenever You Need Somebody"

Astley’s second major single is every bit the ’80s gold that “Never Gonna Give You Up” was. It didn’t chart in the U.S., but went to the No. 3 spot in England.

"When I Fall in Love"

His cover of the Nat King Cole standard almost got the coveted “Christmas number one” spot in England in 1987, but it was just narrowly edged out by Pet Shop Boys’ "Always on My Mind."

"Together Forever"

This 1988 track was beaten out in Astley’s home country by Kylie Minogue’s debut single, but Astley emerged victorious in the U.S., scoring his second stateside No. 1 hit.

"She Wants to Dance With Me"

Astley had a no. 1 hit for two weeks with this 1988 track in Canada. In both the U.S. and U.K., it rose up to the No. 6 spot.

"Take Me to Your Heart"

The last of Astley’s 1988 tracks performed modestly well, hitting as high as No. 8 on the U.K. charts, but is perhaps most famous today for a plagiarism dispute launched when the band Inner City claimed the track sounded too similar to its song "Big Fun." However, it should be noted that the accusation was made against the writers of the song and not Astley himself.

"Hold Me in Your Arms"

The title track from Astley’s second album dropped in January 1989 and went as high as No. 10 on the U.K. charts.

"Cry for Help"

And while Astley still records today – his most recent album My Red Book was released in 2013 – his last big hit on the pop charts was this 1991 ballad, which got as high as the No. 7 spot on both the U.K. and U.S. charts.