Together Astley Rick

‘Whenever You Need Somebody’ is the worldwide smash hit debut album from Rick Astley. 2022 marks the 35th Anniversary of the multi-platinum selling album that topped the album charts in the UK, Australia, Germany and Spain and Top 10 in many more. It is an album that has defined a generation of 80s pop music, helmed by the legendary songwriting trio, Stock Aitken and Waterman.

Rick celebrates his extraordinary story with the release of the new career-spanning compilation ‘The Best of Me’. It charts that initial run of hits alongside recent fan favourites such as ‘Keep Singing’, ‘Angels On My Side’ and ‘Try’. It also digs into some deep cut too, such as ‘Sleeping’ from 2001. The set is bookended with a step into the past and an eye to the future. Again self-written, produced and recorded, opening track ‘Every One of Us’ is a brand new song that shows that the power of Rick Astley 2.0 is undiminished. And it closes with a new ‘Pianoforte’ take on ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’. Dropping the peppy ‘80s beats for an intimate piano arrangement captures it in a new light, its inner heartbreak becoming all the more apparent. Echoing that spirit of reinvention, Rick recorded a set of ‘Reimagined’ acoustic interpretations of his songs, old and new, for the second disc of ‘The Best of Me’.

The folks at BMG Heritage did a wonderful job assembling Rick Astley's long-overdue Greatest Hits, for it succeeds in presenting a definitive and complete collection of the 1980s pop sensation's U.S. and U.K. hits. Not only does this set include all of his singles, it also boasts excellent liner notes, photographs, and chart positions. Included are his American chart-toppers "Together Forever" and "Never Gonna Give You Up," the latter arguably one of the 1980s' most recognizable songs, as well as all of his other Top Ten hits, including the Motown-ish "It Would Take a Strong, Strong Man," "She Wants to Dance With Me," and the 1991 ballad hit "Cry for Help."

2007 two CD set from the small man with the big, booming voice! Cast your mind back to the pop music of 1987 and chances are you'll think of Rick Astley wearing that suit and doing that dance on Top of the Pops, and you'll find yourself humming 'Never Gonna Give You Up', a burst of danceable White Soul so infectious, so melodically irresistible and rhythmically appealing that it found itself lodged at the top of the charts for weeks.