Everything you need to know about: Rick Astley

Rick Astley’s undeniably huge 1987 hit, ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ made him a worldwide success and resulted in over 40 million worldwide record sales within the next six years. Rick Astley still performs regularly and is available for bookings through MN2S Agency.

Born in Lancashire, Astley began his career in music at just 10 years of age where he started out singing in the local church choir, but, while at school, moved on to performing regularly with a number of bands and eventually came to meet local guitarist David Morris. Having left school at 16, he began work for the market gardening business run by his father and continued to play drums in bands like Give Way and FBI.

It was with FBI that Rick Astley first hit upon musical success in 1985, when Astley was appointed lead singer of the group after the previous singer left and the guitarist Morris chose instead to pursue a career in hairdressing. Astley was scouted by Pete Waterman who brought him to work at RCA Records, where he spent his time as little more than the “tea boy” while Waterman, Mike Stock and Matt Aitken trained him for a performing career in the music industry.

His first single ‘When You Gonna’, with Lisa Carter, unfortunately met with little success but it was followed up with what would become a legendary global hit, ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’. The track was released to the public in August 1987, having been recorded eight months previously on New Year’s Day, and immediately shot to number 1 in the British charts and became the best-selling single of the year. Not only successful in the UK, the song saw success all over the world hitting the number 1 spot in 24 countries, and was eventually voted Best British Single and at the BPI Awards (now called the Brits) in 1988, accompanied by a live performance in front of 100 million viewers.

Astley followed up his huge global impact with a song originally recorded by O’Chi Brown entitled ‘Whenever You Need Somebody’, which shot to number 1 in seven countries in Europe and was number 3 in the UK charts. The single was taken from the eponymous album from 1987 – an album that contained four tracks penned by Astley himself. The record was a great success, hitting number 1 hit in the UK and Australia, number 10 in the US as well as earning 4x Platinum status in the UK and Canada, 2x Platinum in the US and amassing over 15 million worldwide sales.

The album also included a Nat King Cole cover ‘When I Fall in Love’ which was involved in a vicious competition for the coveted Christmas number 1 spot. a tactical move from EMI however, prevented the song from getting to the top spot – the label released the original so as to slow down sales of the Astley version, allowing the EMI represented Pet Shop Boys to clamber to number 1 in the yuletide period.

The single ‘Together Forever’ soared to number 2 in the UK charts after its release in 1988, narrowly missing out on number 1 to Kylie Minogue’s ‘I Should Be So Lucky’, but hit the number 1 spot in the US, cementing Astley as part of only a small group of British musicians to gain significant success across the pond. The album’s last single again performed well in North America, hitting no.10 in the US and no.1 in Canada.

Despite fantastic performances in the charts, Astley was the recipient of a backlash from the british media, accused of being nothing more than a poster boy and puppet of the Stock Aitken Waterman production team. After the negative attention Astley left Stock Aitken Waterman to work on a more soul orientated solo album, having already proved his song writing abilities on his previous album. The 1991 release ‘Free’ enjoyed success in the UK and the US, and included a collaboration with none other than Elton John, but after releasing 1993’s ‘Body and Soul’, Astley bowed out of the music industry and the public attention that came with it.

Following a long hiatus from music, Astley returned to the fray in 2002 with new material and a world tour, enjoying warm receptions in countries all over the world, and is available for bookings via London based music booking agency MN2S.

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Twitch: Entertainment Site for Gamers, eSports, and Musicians

Integration with Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS4, PC, laptops, and mobile iOS and Android platforms has Twitch.tv as the site of choice for gamers. The site is a hub for live-streaming and video for primarily video games and eSports, but Twitch is expanding into areas that include music and community or special events. 

The largest part of this site is probably eSports, which can attribute its explosive growth in a great way to live streaming, of which Twitch has played an important part. eSports and Twitch have a mutually beneficial relationship; one that will continue now the site is part of Amazon. This backing has given Twitch the confidence and resources to expand from game presenting, live streaming from big gaming conventions, gaming talk shows, and video games in general into other areas like music, poker, and special events. 

Twitch Expands to Music 

Twitch is making expansions in music oriented content now as well. This began with the streamed performance of Video Games Live in July 2013 at the San Diego Comic-Con and the live performance broadcast of Steve Aoki, the electronic dance music DJ, from a nightclub in Ibiza in July of 2014. As of the beginning of 2015 an official category for music streams has been introduced on Twitch, also becoming the official live streaming partner of the Ultra Music Festival in Miami.

Another music initiative is the Twitch Music Library that includes a library of songs that are pre-cleared for broadcasters to use live and with VODs (past broadcasts or highlights) on Twitch. The collection in the library includes at least 500 songs that broadcasters can actually use in their streams for free. This is a clear initiative to connect artists looking for exposure to their music with Twitch.tv broadcasters seeking music to use in their video streams.

The music is provided by burgeoning and established labels and artists. Many of the early adopters of the Twitch music scene are fans of Electronic Dance Music (EDM), but Twitch is looking to adopt other genres like hip-hop, metal, and alternative. Slospeak, a label that represents the San Francisco based band known as Talkie falls into the latter genre. Though the music produced by the band defies some traditional labels, it seems to fall into the alternative rock category with influences of power pop and 90s alternative. Power pop has been characterized as a mixture of hard rock and melodic pop music, having distinctive harmony singing, strong melodic lines, unforgettable guitar riffs, and lyrics about girls and boys in love. Many people believe The Beatles were the source point musically for the characteristics present in the genre. Talkie has all the makings of a power pop band with a knack for writing heartfelt anthems about life, love, and loss, defying classifications for what a rock band should sound like, so perhaps it won’t be long before Twitch becomes a portal for this specific genre.

Twitch Expands to Poker 

Poker on Twitch is a gaming genre that is gaining momentum, in part due to players like Jason “JCarver” Somerville pushing live streaming of online poker games. As a result of the popularity he gained from using the platform, other players are now creating their own channels on Twitch as well. Mark Kennedy, an Australian poker professional, is just one of the many players who are now on Twitch. Kennedy recently became a Player Ambassador for the online poker giant Full Tilt Poker, with his own channel streaming on Twitch in addition to having his channel hosted on Twitch site Full Tilt Live on Saturday afternoons UK time. Kennedy in the role of intermediary between player/fan and Full Tilt Poker is an example of how a company can create a direct link to its consumer to create a better product. 

Twitch Expands to other Entertainment Possibilities 

In addition to these music offerings, Twitch has a promotional program for unique content events as well. They are reaching out to more and more people in the entertainment world, specifically the music and television industries, to find and provide new and exciting content experiences on the site. As mentioned earlier, Twitch has partnered with Ultra to stream live concerts from one of the biggest Electronic Music festivals in the world directly on Twitch.

They are also working with HBO and USA to broadcast shows called Silicon Valley and Mr. Robot from the respective television networks. The new promotion is called Twitch Specials and is expected to draw unique content events like show premiers and music festivals for Twitch viewers. In fact, the company hopes to encourage artists to not only produce tracks live for a dedicated Music category, but they also hope viewers and musicians will review the work of other artists on these streams.

Though Twitch is a currently a gamer oriented site, the non-gaming music activities and events are expected to fit seamlessly into the culture.

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