It’s been roughly a decade since Rick Astley skyrocketed back to popularity thanks to becoming an internet meme. Though “RickRolling,” the act of luring an unsuspecting victim into watching the video for Astley’s 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up” with a misleading link, has died down over the years, Astley endures as an online celebrity for everything but his music. However, Astley can thank the meme for introducing a whole new generation of people to his one major hit, and likely for the ability to play shows to packed houses like the one at Emo’s in Austin last Thursday night.
“You came for the ’80s. I know that,” Astley admitted before launching into “Together Forever,” another noteworthy charting hit from his first album, Whenever You Need Somebody. The fact that “Together Forever” is almost a carbon copy of “Never Gonna Give You Up” is irrelevant. The songs are bubblegum pop that have endured because they’re flat out fun. Even Astley has said he feels the songs are “pretty naff,” but they’ve actually aged considerably well, to the point that many young fans crossed over from hearing “Never Gonna Give You Up” in a meme to paying upwards of $40 dollars to see Astley perform it live.
Not all of his material has lived up. Astley’s set hit a couple of lulls, particularly when he performed songs from the intervening albums between Whenever You Need Somebody and his latest, 50. There’s a reason his popularity dropped off for a time. However, whether because it’s his strongest material since he first started or because of the meme, 50 recently became Astley’s first #1 album in the UK since 1987. 50 is perhaps the most serious and impacting music Astley has ever written. Where “She Wants to Dance With Me” or “Whenever You Need Somebody” are silly, fun pop songs, Astley has embraced his rich voice and put it to more mature, serious songs like prime 50 cuts “Pray With Me” and “Keep Singing.”
Astley’s set was bolstered as well by a selection of fantastic cover songs including the Mark Ronson/Bruno Mars hit “Uptown Funk,” AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” (featuring Astley on drums as well as vocals), and “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” by the Temptations. Though inconsistent as a writer of his own songs up until 50‘s return to form, Astley’s voice has never faltered and his band pulled off all these songs in style. In particular, “Uptown Funk” might have been even better than the original.
Of course, it all goes back to that one “naff” hit from the ’80s. Astley is an intelligent man, and he knows where his bread is buttered. Though stellar performances of covers and 50 songs carried him through the night, there’s no way he would have gotten out of the building alive without singing the immortal “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Closing out the night with it, Astley and his band tore the house down with a full fledged singalong of his most famous song. He’ll never be able to live it down, and he seems content with that. After all, as he told the crowd, it bought his mum a house. It also made sure a new audience would have the pleasure of hearing Astley develop into a force of a performer and songwriter.
