For someone known as much for his wiry quiff and bolero jackets as for the cheesy lyrics of “Never gonna give you up (Never gonna let you down/Never gonna run around and desert you)”, it is fitting that Rick Astley was discovered by Pete Waterman while singing at a Warrington hairdressers' Christmas party. At discos and wedding dos in the late 1980s it was Astley's songs that would send people stampeding to the dancefloor to do that special routine to “Together forever and never to part/Together forever we two”. Even those who dismissed Astley, then 21, as another singing puppet from the Stock, Aitken Waterman (SAW) bubblegum factory had to concede that having a single in the UK Top 40 every week for the first six months of his career and getting a US No 1 wasn't bad for a former teaboy.

Now Astley, 42, is enjoying international recognition all over again. It is not, however, thanks to a new album but to a “rickrolling”, whereby internet users are tricked into clicking on a tempting link (Keira Knightley Upskirt Photo, say) and are then redirected to footage of Astley singing Never Gonna Give You Up. So far 18 million people have been rickrolled and the song has taken on cult status, even being sung at an anti-Scientology demonstration. Now the New York Mets baseball team have fallen victim. After asking fans to select a new theme song by voting online, the team were astonished to learn that Astley's song was the winner (they will not, alas, be adopting it as their anthem).

The obvious question is: why? Why pick a 1980s star from Newton-le-Willows for a 21st-century practical joke? Is there an “it's so naff it's cool” element to it? Do middle-aged female fans yearn for a revival? Astley himself has proclaimed it “a bit spooky”, though his record company is delighted, and planning a Greatest Hits release. None of this may be welcome to Astley, who has said that he finds the trappings of fame difficult. He likes to live anonymously with his long-term Danish girlfriend, Lene Bausager, and their teenage daughter, Emilie, near Kingston, and he has a motorboat on the Solent.

Astley, the youngest of four children of separated parents, was a multimillionaire by the age of 27, having sold 19 million records worldwide. Throughout his time with SAW he stuck with his childhood girlfriend and was never tempted by the women who threw themselves at him. Soon after they broke up, he met Lene, a film-maker. Their daughter arrived in 1992 and the next year Astley, who was weary of touring and had developed a fear of flying, retired to do his own thing. “I wanted to watch my child grow up,” he said.

There have been a couple of albums since, but Astley seems wary of regaining his superstar profile. “Part of me is utterly seduced by it,” he once said. “It gives you a status that no one else has. But in all that time [I was famous], I never really shared any of it. I was on my own.”

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