Awesome Rick Astley

(PG-13: Language) Like many of you, we’ve been Rickrolled a number of times – but never quite like this. Otu Suurmunne from Moonic Productions imagines what Never Gonna Give You Up would sound like if it was performed by Black Sabbath instead of Rick Astley. He’s got Rick’s dance moves down, that’s for sure.

Norteño music is known for its catchy and danceable sounds, and Houston-based EZ Band masterfully melds the genre with popular songs. In this video, they deliver a Mexican Rick-Roll with their fun and original cover of Rick Astley’s inescapable pop hit, Never Gonna Give You Up.

Say what you will about Never Gonna Give You Up, but the 1987 pop hit has kept musician Rick Astley in the cultural zeitgeist for decades. And he’s actually really, really good. During the BBC’s Radio 2 in the Park 2023 concert, Rick and his band crushed it with a live performance of his cover of Foo Fighters’ Everlong.

Can you truly be Rickrolled if you know it’s coming? Well, either way, we enjoyed listening to Algal the Bard’s arrangement of Rick Astley’s classic Never Gonna Give You Up, performed on traditional instruments straight out of medieval times. We also recommend his bardcore take on Fear of the Dark.

We’re big fans of Tame Impala. Musician Max Frost imagines what it might sound like if the Aussie alt-pop group Rickrolled us all and recorded a cover of Never Gonna Give You Up in their unique electro-psychedelic style. It sounds pretty awesome if you ask us.

When There I Ruined It isn’t making horrible versions of classic songs, they’re creating other kinds of musical mayhem. This brief but awesome mashup combines bits of Bohemian Rhapsody, All-Star, Never Gonna Give You Up, Lose Yourself, and a few other sound snippets. Follow their TikTok feed for more fun.

We’ve been Rickrolled countless times by Never Gonna Give You Up, but what happens when you speed up Rick Astley’s 1987 hit track might surprise you. As Twitter user Muscle Man pointed out, it basically turns into the perfect theme song for a magical anime girl. Someone needs to do this with the Japanese version now.

Musician Alex Melton seems to have a thing for Blink-182. This time, he performs Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up in the style of the masters of pop punk. Next time you want to Rickroll someone, send them a link to this video.

We’ve heard Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up at least 1000 times. But this version posted by Christya mixes things up by transforming Rick’s sound into something straight out of a Japanese anime, minus the actual animation. Vocals by MOM0KI, annapantsu, LilyPichu, and LizzRobinett

Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up is closing in on a billion YouTube views, thanks in large part to its use as the world’s number one prank. Alfo Media offers a retrospective on musician Rick Astley, the music video itself, where the term “Rickroll” comes from, and the impact the meme has had on Astley’s career.

For all of the laughs that Rickrolling has delivered over the years, musician Rick Astley has proven his talent time and time again. Here, he wows us with an unexpected cover of Post Malone’s Better Now, bringing his smooth and soulful vocals to the hit track.

Ever wonder what a Rick Astley song written by an AI might sound like? YouTuber Lil’Alien demonstrates what neural network called Jukebox came up with when asked to create more of Never Gonna Give You Up based on the data fed into its electronic brain. Play with more weird AI music on the Jukebox Sample Explorer.

With the recent passing of Bill Withers, we lost one of the greatest singer/songwriters of all time. Musicians around the globe have been paying tribute to Withers with heartfelt performances like this one by Rick Astley, whose cover of “Ain’t No Sunshine” gave us chills.

You will be RickRoll’d by this video. But that’s okay, because the guy doing the RickRolling is none other than Rick Astley himself, with a great, stripped back performance of the track that everyone has accidentally heard at least once in their life, Never Gonna Give You Up. From BBC Music’s Radio 2 Piano Room.

The talented musicians of Scary Pockets teamed up with singer-songwriter Reeve Carney for a phenomenal cover of Never Gonna Give You Up, boiling down Rick Astley’s hit into a soul-stirring new version, thanks in large part to Carney’s smooth and powerful vocals.

The members of Toronto ensemble Choir! Choir! Choir! were joined by a special guest performer, none other than pop legend Rick Astley. They provided harmonies and backup while Rick took on lead vocal duties. We’re impressed how great his voice is after all these years.