"Never Gonna Give You Up" is the debut single recorded by English singer and songwriter Rick Astley, released on 27 July 1987. It is Astley's most famous song. It was written and produced by Stock Aitken Waterman, and was released as the first single from Astley's debut album, Whenever You Need Somebody (1987). The song was a worldwide number-one hit, initially in the United Kingdom in 1987, where it stayed at the top of the chart for five weeks and was the best-selling single of that year. It eventually topped the charts in 25 countries, including the United States and West Germany. and winning Best British Single at the 1988 Brit Awards. The song is considered to be Astley's signature song and it is often played at the end of his live concerts. The music video for the song surged in popularity beginning in 2007 due to the "Rickroll" internet meme, in which a user expecting entirely unrelated content is shown the video. In 2008, Astley won the MTV Europe Music Award for Best Act Ever with the song, as a result of collective campaign from thousands of people on the Internet. In 2019, Astley recorded and released a 'Pianoforte' version of the song for his album The Best of Me, which features a new piano arrangement. Production "Never Gonna Give You Up" was recorded at PWL Studios in South London, England. The song's basslines were produced using a Yamaha DX7 digital synthesizer, while a Linn 9000 was used for the drums and sequencing. Other equipment used included a Roland Juno 106 analog synthesizer, and Yamaha Rev5 and Rev7 reverberators. Mike Stock stated that the Colonel Abrams hit "Trapped" (1985) was a big influence on "Never Gonna Give You Up", saying: "For Rick Astley's song I didn't want it to sound like Kylie or Bananarama so I looked at the Colonel Abrams track 'Trapped' and recreated that syncopated bassline in a way that suited our song." The title and concept for the song were suggested by Pete Waterman after Astley spoke to him of his devotion to his then girlfriend, with the song's tune, chords and lyrics then composed by Mike Stock and Matt Aitken. Initial mixing was done by Phil Harding, with the song's distinctive synthetic string and brass lines later added by Fairlight operator Ian Curnow. The final mix was provided by PWL remixer Pete Hammond, who made