Rick Astley - dead? The Star Malaysia gets suckered... I mean Rickrolled!

Am on the way to Hard Rock Cafe for the launch of Disagree's album. Got a message from a friend. Apparently, The Star flashed this piece of news to its subscribers via SMS. The original link - CLICK HERE (update - this was removed roughly at 3.30pm. Guess someone from The Star realise they were duped!)

1980s pop icon Rick Astley, 43, found dead in Berlin hotel room

BERLIN: Known for his 1980s pop hit Never Gonna Give You Up, 43-year-old Rick Astley has been pronounced dead Tuesday.

His body was found at the Angleterre Hotel in Berlin after an ambulance responded to an emergency call from his hotel room.

Astley was found unconscious in his hotel bedroom and was unable to be resuscitated. He was pronounced dead on the scene.

Astley was in the middle of a concert tour that would have ended in late August of 2009. He was to return to the United Kingdom at that time. -- AP

While it claims its news source from AP, a search on AP's site revealed no such news. This site claims that the news initially was flash on CNN's iReport. Seeing that the site flashes user submitted, unedited news, it's supposed to be fake, Here's one of the news flashes on the site - CLICK HERE.

According to a user on the site,Rick Astley left Berlin about a week ago, and his last show was in Norway and he was to head from there to Denmark. So why Germany is anyone's guess. According to his website too, apparently he is NOT and has a total of one show scheduled for all of July. The original iReport about this was also supposedly removed from the website.

So this points to a hoax. Which brings us to :
1. Why didn't The Star check on this before flashing it.
2. Why are there people circulating rumours of death. It's just not funny.



PS - Rick has 'died' before. Last year. Watch the video below dated August 2008. Why are there people intent on killing him off???

PPS - In conclusion - the news that Rick Astley is dead, is as true as as the Michael Jackson autopsy report. Boo!
So for fans of any of these people - Rick Astley, George Clooney, Miley Cyrus, Natalie Portman, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Jeff Goldblum, and Lil Wayne. They're all alive and kicking and are just victims of neverending death hoax jobs. You would think a reputable news agency would verify stuff like that before flashing it... oh well..

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Thing that make you go...

Hari ni checking on the Internet, was watching videos on Youtube for some research was doing, when I clicked on a link and a video of Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up came on.

Ok, Youtube has been weird lately. Copyright issues have been tightened and some videos are not viewable based on the country where we're in. So I've been getting this Rick Astley video a lot for months now but thought that was Youtube's way of screwing around with us.

That's when I finally learnt something new.

Ok so it's not that new. It's been around since 2007 but became a mainstream prank in 2008.

I'm talking about 'rickrolling' otherwise when you get sprung, being 'rickrolled' (also spelled rickroll'd. It's where someone gives you, or describes a video in the tags and title that fit your search, and it's actually a Rick Astley music video.

And this joke is all over the Internet.

Well I guess you learn something new every day. I've been rickrolled I think bout a dozen times today. I think I'm tiring of the song.

CLICK HERE for the wikipedia definition of Rickrolling
CLICK HERE for the Urban Dictionary definition of Rickrolling
CLICK HERE for the official You Got Rickrolled page

In case you've never been rickrolled, here's what you get for those yang tak pernah went through the Eighties. By the way this song was a huge hit then.



Scarily enough I can actually sing a long the whole song without forgetting a single word or beat. Arghhhh!!! I DO NOT age gracefully.

So at least now you what what it means to be rickrolled. If you already did when you read this, then shut up, don't bitch and watch this.

The band you're watching (if you're playing the video is OK Go a band from Chicago, now residing in Los Angeles.

The videos above are firstly A Million Ways and Here It Goes Again. The latter won a Grammy Award for Best Short-Form Music Video in 2007.

A Million Ways was their first single, and was a viral Internet phenomenon end 2005. The ultra-low budget, long take video featured the band in their back yard performing a dance choreographed by lead singer Kulash's sister, Trish Sie.

Using a camera borrowed from a friend, the video was produced for under ten dollars, and was apparently released without the knowledge or consent of their label, Capitol Records.

By August 2006, the video had become the most downloaded music video ever with over 9 million downloads.

In July 31, 2006 the band released a video in a similar vein for Here It Goes Again featuring an elaborately choreographed dance on treadmills, also directed and choreographed by Trish Sie.

This video was viewed by over one million people on the media site YouTube in the first six days. As of the end of until today, the original video upload for Here It Goes Again has been viewed over 44 million times, putting it in 30th place for the most views of any video of all time and 22nd place for most viewed music video as well as the 6th most favourited video and 2nd top favourited music video of all time on YouTube

It is also the 49th ranked most discussed music for all time over Youtube.

Why am I sharing this? Cause some people in our music industry still think you need big bucks, major muscle and huge influence to get attention, get a hit, or win a Grammy.

Creativity is the key, and if you don't have it - then the only real money you need to spend is for someone with it.

Losers...

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