He’s become such an icon for all the strangest reasons, but when Rick Astley had his breakthrough as a singer, in the 80s, he already was someone you just couldn’t ignore.
This was mainly due to the fact that he had such a deep, full, soulful, mature voice for his age. His looks and voice just didn’t seem to match and intrigued a lot of people. Combined with the tunes written by Stock, Aitken & Waterman, his songs stormed the charts and have become guilty pleasures for many people ever since.
Rick Astley struggled to keep his music career going since those days. He attempted a career, with modest success, after leaving the safety of the hit factory that Stock, Aitken & Waterman were known to be. Many would now be long forgotten, but the internet kept his legacy alive.
Maybe you too were once “rickrolled”? It’s been a running gag on the internet to mislead people into thinking they can read a serious news story, watch a famous movie trailer or anything else, and then lead them to his video for “Never Gonna Give You Up”. It became such a trend at some point, that it could’ve actually really hurt him as an artist, but Rick has always seen the humor in it himself too.
I, personally, still think his Stock, Aitken & Waterman albums are the best work that have come from them (they’re up there with the Donna Summer album “In Another Time And Place”). It’s the maturity of his voice, that have given their production a warmth that none other hit factory artist managed to add. Their artist were mainly known to be fun, smiley, bubbly and their music was light hearted and usually clean cut.
Now, Rick Astley has passed the age of 50, but shows it’s never too late to revive a music career. With his new single, “Keep Singing”, he shows that he’s no stranger to the music out there today. He’s made the bold choice not to go back to what he’s known for, but move straight into the now. A risky strategy, but extremely well executed. He's, literally, grown into his voice and the whole picture makes more sense now.
“Keep Singing” sounds like it could be a song by Hozier, and therefore you would not accredit it to Rick Astley at all, if you would hear it on the radio in passing. But if you are into that Hozier type of music, this is so worth checking out.
I can’t wait to see what this will mean for Rick himself. Will this mean that he is back and he can keep on singing? I sure hope so.
