Securing the rights to the ‘80s hit “Never Gonna Give You Up” would be a cost-prohibitive logistical nightmare for most podcast producers. But the team at QCode will have a heavy dose of singer Rick Astley nevertheless in their series Unwanted. He wrote the official theme song for the scripted comedy series. And now the track “Unwanted,” which Astley co-wrote and co-produced with Deron Johnson, QCode’s Head of Music, is being released as a single.
“It has been a fun and exciting thing to write a song for a podcast,” said Astley. “It’s a new world for me and I really love what we came up with.”
Kyle Shevrin and Lamorne Morris, the creators of the Unwanted podcast, say the decision to make the track available on music streaming platforms was by popular demand of their show’s fans. "You've all been asking and asking and now we're delivering,” they said in a joint statement.
Astley, who topped charts in the 80s with songs like “Together Forever” and “When I Fall in Love,” has been enjoying a career resurgence in recent years. In 2016 he returned with new music and released his self-penned platinum album “50” that has sold more than 400,000 copies to date. In 2018 he followed it up with another album, “Beautiful Life,” and in 2019 released a best-of album “The Best of Me.” During this past year, Astley has been a regular on TikTok including performing on Demi Weitz’s live Zoom charity events.
The QCode podcast Unwanted podcast is a scripted action and comedy podcast series. It stars a pair of slackers, played by Morris and actor Billy Magnussen, who attempt to catch an escaped convicted murderer, who is allegedly hiding in their town, to cash in on the million-dollar reward bounty.
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