Never Gonna Give You Up: the Animated Music Video
May 20, 2022 4:49 PM Subscribe
This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- loup
I love the idea of this, but am sad that it's so terrible.
posted by ArmandoAkimbo at 5:45 PM on May 20, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by ArmandoAkimbo at 5:45 PM on May 20, 2022 [11 favorites]
RickRollers....getting so bold.
posted by OHenryPacey at 5:51 PM on May 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by OHenryPacey at 5:51 PM on May 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
1-760-706-7425 for all you RickRolling needs.
posted by zengargoyle at 6:23 PM on May 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by zengargoyle at 6:23 PM on May 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
Yeah, that was... not very good. I found his cartoon hair to be disturbing.
posted by Spike Glee at 6:39 PM on May 20, 2022
posted by Spike Glee at 6:39 PM on May 20, 2022
I wonder if "Never Gonna Give You Up" works so well as a meme because there still is that lingering feeling of incongruity that a lot of white radio/MTV listeners felt when they saw Rick Astley for the first time
I grew up in a mid-sized Midwestern town (pop. 125,000 or so at the time?) and our local provider had MTV almost right from the bat, for some reason. So by the time '87 rolled around, there was already a perfect and established synergy between pop radio and MTV in my childhood musical consumption. (The more interesting discovery that year was college radio and 120 Minutes, but that's another article.) I recall seeing Rick Astley more or less at the same time I first heard him.
What's more strange for me is that I was 10 years old for most of 1987, and just getting the first rather more definitive feelings of my queerness, as opposed to the indefinable yearning of younger childhood. In Rick Astley, I heard that voice (that definitely passed for manly to a 10-year-old) projecting out of that cherubic face, guaranteed to appeal to a kid who grew up on loads of British chart-pop and blue-eyed soul (there's that early MTV again). I wouldn't say I was ever a fan of Rick Astley, but there were a few good months where he was the definite object of one fantasy or another, at least until the next chart phenom came along. (Simon LeBon was already old news. I wish I had been cool enough to lust after Nick Rhodes instead, as he hasn't aged a day since then.)
As with so many thoughts of youth in middle age, I hold a perfect balance of fondness and mortification at Rick Astley's brief but notable role in my sexual awakening. All that being said, I guess my nostalgia just isn't cheap enough, as I found Rickrolling funny approximately once.
posted by mykescipark at 6:44 PM on May 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
I grew up in a mid-sized Midwestern town (pop. 125,000 or so at the time?) and our local provider had MTV almost right from the bat, for some reason. So by the time '87 rolled around, there was already a perfect and established synergy between pop radio and MTV in my childhood musical consumption. (The more interesting discovery that year was college radio and 120 Minutes, but that's another article.) I recall seeing Rick Astley more or less at the same time I first heard him.
What's more strange for me is that I was 10 years old for most of 1987, and just getting the first rather more definitive feelings of my queerness, as opposed to the indefinable yearning of younger childhood. In Rick Astley, I heard that voice (that definitely passed for manly to a 10-year-old) projecting out of that cherubic face, guaranteed to appeal to a kid who grew up on loads of British chart-pop and blue-eyed soul (there's that early MTV again). I wouldn't say I was ever a fan of Rick Astley, but there were a few good months where he was the definite object of one fantasy or another, at least until the next chart phenom came along. (Simon LeBon was already old news. I wish I had been cool enough to lust after Nick Rhodes instead, as he hasn't aged a day since then.)
As with so many thoughts of youth in middle age, I hold a perfect balance of fondness and mortification at Rick Astley's brief but notable role in my sexual awakening. All that being said, I guess my nostalgia just isn't cheap enough, as I found Rickrolling funny approximately once.
posted by mykescipark at 6:44 PM on May 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
yes i couldn't bear to watch more than a few cuts into the first verse... is it really just a shot-by-shot remake of the original video done in this one-notch-above-shitpost animation style? who would greenlight that?
posted by glonous keming at 6:52 PM on May 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by glonous keming at 6:52 PM on May 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
Same. First time I saw Rick I was like….that ain’t right. Even my 12yo Canadian suburb self knew: How is the soulful voice of a 40yo black man coming out of a skinny white boy who can’t dance. And who looks like he’s 13. I truly thought it was fake, or a mistake, or a joke. I guess that’s the original rickroll.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 8:02 PM on May 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 8:02 PM on May 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
My headcannon went: oh the real Rick Astley is the bartender and they swapped during filming.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 8:48 PM on May 20, 2022
posted by St. Peepsburg at 8:48 PM on May 20, 2022
Amazing, instead of something timelessly ‘80s stylish like the “Take on Me” video, this appears to be an early 2003 Conan O’Brien fan movie rendered in Flash.
posted by Apocryphon at 8:50 PM on May 20, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Apocryphon at 8:50 PM on May 20, 2022 [6 favorites]
(I found it endearing)
posted by ducky l'orange at 9:35 PM on May 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by ducky l'orange at 9:35 PM on May 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
Honestly, I watched the video thinking about how much more it had me focussing on the lyrics than I usually did when that song came on. Like, I was tuned in for all the verses and everything.
And yes, as stated above, hearing the song for a couple of weeks on radio and then seeing the video on MTV was a bit... jarring. No, that's too mild a word. I mean, the whole UK Blue Eyed Soul thing had been around for a while already with various artists, but this was the first one where I, personally, had a picture of Rick Astley in my mind and he was a big black bearded teddy bear of a man, not a skinny white kid looking similar to me in a trenchcoat.
Anyway, I enjoyed this video but it wasn't amazing. I'm left wondering if Rick paid for this or if this is a fan video he's lifted up with his platform.
posted by hippybear at 9:38 PM on May 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
And yes, as stated above, hearing the song for a couple of weeks on radio and then seeing the video on MTV was a bit... jarring. No, that's too mild a word. I mean, the whole UK Blue Eyed Soul thing had been around for a while already with various artists, but this was the first one where I, personally, had a picture of Rick Astley in my mind and he was a big black bearded teddy bear of a man, not a skinny white kid looking similar to me in a trenchcoat.
Anyway, I enjoyed this video but it wasn't amazing. I'm left wondering if Rick paid for this or if this is a fan video he's lifted up with his platform.
posted by hippybear at 9:38 PM on May 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
I can't be the only one who thought that link was just going to lead to the original video, can I?
posted by Wandering Idiot at 10:12 PM on May 20, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by Wandering Idiot at 10:12 PM on May 20, 2022 [12 favorites]
There's going to be a referendum here in Denmark, on our EU defence reservations, and one party is rick-rolling us on their election posters. I smiled.
I smiled at the animation too. There is something funny about the exaggeration inherent in cartoons, even if they are directly copying a live video.
posted by mumimor at 1:54 AM on May 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
I smiled at the animation too. There is something funny about the exaggeration inherent in cartoons, even if they are directly copying a live video.
posted by mumimor at 1:54 AM on May 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
I loved it! I thought the simplistic nature of it is what made it so much fun!
posted by manageyourexpectations at 4:09 AM on May 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by manageyourexpectations at 4:09 AM on May 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
jonp72: So, if when some people first heard Rick Astley sing "Never Gonna Give You Up" on the radio and then only got to see the music video later, a lot of them did a double take because they were expecting a black guy built like Barry White with a very large, resonant chest cavity, instead of the pasty redhead English guy they got.
cf. Bobby Caldwell's "What You Won't Do For Love"
posted by emelenjr at 4:41 AM on May 21, 2022 [4 favorites]
cf. Bobby Caldwell's "What You Won't Do For Love"
posted by emelenjr at 4:41 AM on May 21, 2022 [4 favorites]
Very early-2000s basic flash animation, which... fits? When did "Rick Rolling" become a thing? I guess it would have to be after YouTube so a bit after that era.
posted by thefool at 7:07 AM on May 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by thefool at 7:07 AM on May 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'm a GenXer and I don't think I had ever been aware of "Never Gonna Give You Up" until "rickrolls" became a thing. It's possible I'd heard it but it was just another disposable hit on the top forty stations I wasn't really listening to any more.
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Wow. This is not good animation. Wild camera swings and some effects trying to cover up animation that I would have sent back with a bunch of notes when I was a Flash director back in nineteen fucking ninety. Hair pops like crazy, hands and arms are just vague blobs moving linearly, sideways mouth floating weirdly in front face, what a mess. At least get some funny drawings in there ffs.
posted by egypturnash at 7:10 AM on May 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
----
Wow. This is not good animation. Wild camera swings and some effects trying to cover up animation that I would have sent back with a bunch of notes when I was a Flash director back in nineteen fucking ninety. Hair pops like crazy, hands and arms are just vague blobs moving linearly, sideways mouth floating weirdly in front face, what a mess. At least get some funny drawings in there ffs.
posted by egypturnash at 7:10 AM on May 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
Pretty sure they made it terrible on purpose for the people who still like to rickroll.
posted by subdee at 7:21 AM on May 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by subdee at 7:21 AM on May 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
I love this song. The animation isn't great, but who cares?
posted by tommasz at 7:43 AM on May 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by tommasz at 7:43 AM on May 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
I hate to say this, but I'd buy an NFT of Rick Astley performing Never Gonna Give You Up.
posted by SPrintF at 8:15 AM on May 21, 2022
posted by SPrintF at 8:15 AM on May 21, 2022
This is not great. I can only imagine this is an attempt for Mr. Astley to get a larger cut of the YouTube monetization, since he probably gets a much smaller cut for the original video (which is likely owned mostly by the original record label). If so, kudus to him.
posted by 3j0hn at 12:20 PM on May 21, 2022
posted by 3j0hn at 12:20 PM on May 21, 2022
Well, do you remember Rick Astley?posted by CCBC at 2:30 PM on May 21, 2022 [1 favorite]
He had a big fat hit, it was ghastley.
jonp72, I remember. Seeing Rick was jarring, but not as jarring as seeing Mariah Carey after hearing her belt “Vision of Love” on the radio for weeks.
posted by infinitewindow at 10:17 PM on May 22, 2022
posted by infinitewindow at 10:17 PM on May 22, 2022
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I am basically the same age as the kids in Stranger Things. (Technically, I'm one year younger, but I could have gone to junior high with them, as those boys would have been in 8th grade when I was in 7th.)
Later generational cohorts are probably most familiar with Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" as a meme and a joke, but is there anybody out there who remembers what it was like to hear the song on the radio before you saw the video?
When "Never Gonna Give You Up" started getting played on pop radio in 1987, I don't think MTV had arrived in my town yet. So, generally speaking, you heard what Rick Astley sounded like before you knew what he looked like. There were some shows like Friday Night Videos on NBC where you could watch music videos without having a cable package with MTV, but you practically had to make an appointment to watch music videos. It wasn't "always on" the way MTV was.
Anyhow, the point I'm trying to make is that in my plain vanilla suburb in 1987, a lot of white people thought the guy singing "Never Gonna Give You Up" was a black guy singing like Luther Vandross or Jeffrey Osborne. With the string accompaniment, the music definitely sounded like soul/R&B love songs that were on urban contemporary radio in 1987. So, if when some people first heard Rick Astley sing "Never Gonna Give You Up" on the radio and then only got to see the music video later, a lot of them did a double take because they were expecting a black guy built like Barry White with a very large, resonant chest cavity, instead of the pasty redhead English guy they got.
Granted, I expected black radio audiences in 1987 might not have been fooled & my experience is definitely not 100% generalizable, but I wonder if "Never Gonna Give You Up" works so well as a meme because there still is that lingering feeling of incongruity that a lot of white radio/MTV listeners felt when they saw Rick Astley for the first time.
posted by jonp72 at 5:41 PM on May 20, 2022 [25 favorites]