The 2016 album *50*, made entirely in his home studio without targeting any specific demographic or format, was in some respects the least meme-conscious record he could have made. It was not a record that referenced the internet phenomenon that had made his name newly visible. It was not a nostalgic exercise in recreating the SAW sound that had defined the meme’s original context. It was a record made by a fifty-year-old man who had been making music for thirty years and who had specific ideas about what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it.
The fact that this record topped the UK chart is evidence that the meme audience had, by 2016, developed a relationship with him that went beyond the comedic frame. Enough people who had first encountered his name through rickrolling had subsequently engaged with his actual music — or had enough affection for the cultural phenomenon associated with him — to participate in making a number-one album happen. This is a specific and unusual kind of cultural trajectory: from authentic pop stardom to meme fame to artistic resurgence, with the meme functioning as an intermediate step in a journey rather than either a destination or a dead end.
## The British Public’s Relationship With Rick Astley
There is something particular about the way the British public has related to Rick Astley over the five decades of his public presence that is worth naming directly, because it informs the *50* chart success and the ongoing affection for him that is visible in his continued commercial activity.