20 years on, Stock-Aitken-Waterman man gets a dusting down.
He may well have been a product of the S-A-W ‘hit factory’ in the '80s, but
Rick Astley had an amazing voice.
With that rich deep voice added to disco beats he became a pop sensation with
his smooth Yuppie image synonymous with Maggie Thatcher’s generation. Looking
distinctly like a slick city trader (who can forget the mac, or denim shirt
and jeans, oh… and the naff shades?), he sucked us onto the dance floor with
feelgood hits like Never Gonna Give You Up (1987) and Together Forever
(1988), both party favourites still.
Now 42, Astley’s rise to fame began as a drummer with Soul band FBI. Spotted
by Pete Waterman he was taken under his wing and groomed for chart success
eventually releasing Never Gonna Give You Up which spent five weeks as
a chart-topper becoming the year’s highest selling single. It was the first of
13 world-wide Top 30 singles.
Success happened in the States too in 1988 with Never Gonna Give You Up
topping the singles chart, followed by Together Forever in June of that
year, again topping the chart. In 1989 he was nominated for a Grammy (Best New
Artist of the Year), losing out to Tracy Chapman.
In a strange move, he released a tasteful cover of Nat King Cole’s When I Fall I Love,
which surprisingly made No.2, showing he had the skill to expand his repertoire.
By the end of the decade Astley had parted with the hit factory which began the
slump in popularity. His last Top 10 hit was the fabulous love ballad Cry For Help
in 1991. Move Right Out (1991) was a commercial disaster, sounding like
a Hue and Cry jazz-pop.
Follow-up Never Knew Love was also a big commercial failure, peaking at
70. By 1993 it was all over. Hopelessly, appropriately, was a hopeless
last shot. In 2005 he released a covers album of Soul standards, Portrait.
On it was Don McLean’s Vincent, done up-tempo. It was terrible.
Despite some less impressive later work, Astley’s total world sales have since
reached a phenomenal 39.9 million, inclusive of singles, albums and compilations.
This Ultimate Collection has all the UK chart entries.
File under: Get ready to be ‘Rick Rolled’, all over again.
For a full track listing, check out the Amazon link above.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Review & concert pics copyright © Elly Roberts, 2004-2008.
