Stop Sleeping On Rick Astley ... No, seriously.

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Stop Sleeping On Rick Astley ... No, seriously.

We've all been RickRoll'd. The memeification of that music video has brought Rick Astley a degree of prominence in pop-culture he might not otherwise have seen. Now we're gonna take a bold, shocking step and embed for you a different Rick Astley video.

That is arguably one of the best Bill Withers tributes that have come out in the days since Withers' passing. Part of what makes watching "Never Gonna Give You Up," funny is the bizarre juxtaposition of a young skinny white dude, wearing a suit out of a '90s NBA draft, belting out a song with a voice 3 octaves lower than you'd expect and run through 1980s audio equipment. Astley is now over 30 years older, and his voice reflects that. So when his low vibrato stretches out a Withers-ian "when she's goooonnneeee," it slides through your ears with a strength that makes you realize 1) Rick Astley legit rules 2) Rick Astley for sure would be able to bang either of your parents.

The best part though? Astley's got other covers out there. He crosses genres like if a Spotify playlist had a dissociative personality disorder. You want some modern pop? Here, he makes Bruno Mars seem like an uninspired wedding DJ.

Here he is flipping shit over, and doing some Daft Punk.

You want him to rock out a bit? Watch him yell "COME ON YOU MOTHERFUCKERS" at a crowd before rocking the actual hell out of Never Gonna Give You Up with Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters.

Yeah, that might just be a cover of his own song, but then you also have him kicking serious ass on the drums as he covers AC/DC's "Highway To Hell".

Despite "retiring" in his late 20s because of the business, man, Rick Astley has still put together a hell of a career beyond "Never Gonna Give You Up." The man has more range than a diesel-powered truck, so this is us just saying thank you to Rick for never giving up on music.

Isaac is on Twitter and Instagram @NotFunnyIsaac. Rickroll him all you want, he won't get tired of it.

Top Image: RCA

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