Rick Astley – Keep Singing

“Almost sounds like the vocal part from an Avicii track.”

Tom: Our reader, Jeff, sends this in. Not quite our usual music, but it seems apt to cover it. And I’ll save his comment for later on: you’ll see why.

Tim: Decent enough Rick Astley song, there.

Tom: Good, calm soul song. Sounds almost like Hozier — and that incredible voice is still there. In fact, it almost sounds like the vocal part from an Avicii track. (Did you know he’s retired, by the way?)

Tim: I did, yes – part of me thinks it’s a shame; on the other hand, it can safely be argued that he peaked a while ago and is getting out just before he stops getting top 10 tracks.

Tom: So this is where I bring in Jeff’s comment: “speed it up by 1.25x”. Click the gear icon at the bottom of the YouTube video, there’s an option to do that.

Tim: Ooh. Oh, that’s interesting, and a whole lot more enjoyable – takes it from slightly dull soul to almost proper pop.

Tom: And now it’s just an Avicii track without the beats. And given that this is Rick Astley, and this is on the internet, I guarantee you that someone will have EDM’d this up by the time this post goes live.

Rick Astley – Lights Out

Play two copies one frame apart next to each other, you get Rick Astley in 3D. No kidding.

Tom: How did we miss this?! Martijn emailed us this, and said “…it’s a Rick Roll. But modern. And awesome.”

Tom: It’s a damn good tune, although it has that ‘in one ear, out the other’ quality; I can’t remember any of the lyrics or even much of the melody even having listened to it a couple of times. Is it listenable? Sure. It is playlistable? Absolutely. Is it a classic? No. Does it need one big ‘oomph’ moment, drums kicking in and ever guitar wailing, when he comes back from the bridge? Yeah, it really does. But never mind: it’s a new Rick Astley single! I wonder if he’d be putting this single out if it hadn’t been for the internet deciding to adore him?

Tim: If I was a little less sensible, I would write ‘Are you sure you’ve got the right video?’ Because this is very definitely not ‘Rick Astley off of Never Gonna Give You Up’. This is an actual modern song – hell, in the video he barely looks old enough to have made songs 25 years ago.

Tom: I swear the man has, up in his attic, a painting of himself that’s steadily getting older.

Tim: If he’s planning a comeback, this is a Good Thing To Do*, because it means he’s brought out a song that mum and dad can listen to and think back to the good old days while the teenage kid hears it playing downstairs and thinks, ‘Ooh, I like this.’ He’s popular with the grown-ups, and the teenager has to work out how he can still be cool if he likes his parents’ music.

Anyway, ‘modern’ isn’t much to say about a track, so here’s something else: like you say, it’s not particularly memorable, but the chorus has a good build-up during it. Or at least, I remember thinking it did, but it’s now been ten minutes since I heard it and I actually can’t really remember how the build-up went. Not at all memorable, then, I suppose. I do remember that I liked it, though, and that’s what mostly matters.

* See also Take That: compare 1995’s How Deep Is Your Love with 2006’s Patience.

Tom: As for the video: they have a Steadicam and they’re not afraid to use it. Is it a callback to Never Gonna Give You Up? Who knows. That constant rotation means, though, that if you play two copies of the video one frame apart next to each other, you get Rick Astley in 3D. No kidding. It’s actually a really convincing effect.