Well if you look at his musical career, it's relatively short prior to 1987. So not really.

He started singing in a church choir when he was 10. He played drums in some local bands and left school at 16. He started playing drums for bands that played clubs. In 1985, he became lead singer for the soul band FBI and was noticed by a record producer. His first real songs were singig on 'Let It Be' by a charity group Ferry Aid, after the Zeebrugge ferry disaster. That was march 1987. Followed that up by a duet with Lisa Fabien in may. And in august 1987 Never Gonna Give You Up was released, which he'd actually recorded on january 1 st that year.

It's certainly... not common for someone to go from 'shy guy playing drums in a nightclub band' to having a chart topping hit in 25 countries in less than five years. He managed to actually have a pretty good career after that, though none of his work will ever reach the lofty heights of Never Gonna Give You Up in terms of sheer popularity. And the fact that the song managed to be a hit, disappear, and come back ten times as strong because of a joke is like a fluke on top of a fluke.