Every year, Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran invites fans into his world by sharing his favorite books, films, music, and more on the official Duran Duran website. With his sharp eye for art and flair for the unconventional, Nick’s recommendations are as bold and eclectic as his legendary style.

To read more about Nick’s favorite things, visit DuranDuran.com.

2024

• Favorite Events: Going to Venice, (one of his favorite places in the world), seeing the play/musical Cold War, the John Waters exhibition, Almodóvar exhibit, Ed Ruscha at LACMA, the Naomi (Campbell) exhibition at the V&A, the Jean Cocteau exhibit in Venice. “My biggest highlight by far was my birthday present… a Russian Blue pussycat!”
• Favorite Movie: Ravens, Kinds of Kindness, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, The Last Showgirl
• Favorite TV: Shogun, Cristóbal Balenciaga
• Favorite Book: Stephen Gill’s Variations on Themes of a Pillar, Julia Borissova
• Best Music: Delia x Erika Isac Ratat, Foushee, Still Around
• Most memorable Duran Duran event: our show at Madison Square Garden on Halloween, being inducted into the Rock Hall
• Most looking forward to in 2025: our European tour this summer, hoping we can finish off the Reportage album, working on three photo books, finishing mine and John’s musical, “I also hope we get a little more peace in the world.”

Who is Nick Rhodes?

Nick Rhodes, born Nicholas James Bates on June 8, 1962, in Birmingham, England, is the keyboardist and a founding member of the legendary band Duran Duran.

Renowned for his groundbreaking work with synthesizers, Rhodes played a vital role in crafting Duran Duran’s signature sound since the band’s formation in the late 1970s. In addition to his success with Duran Duran, Nick Rhodes has explored creative side projects like Arcadia and has gained recognition as a talented artist, fashion icon, and producer for various artists.

2023

• Favorite Events: ChatGPT and the video for “Danse Macabre” using an AI animation program
• Favorite TV: Downton Abbey, The Crown, Season 2 of Wednesday, the next Black Mirror
• Favorite Movie: Oppenheimer, Maestro, May December, Killers of the Flower Moon,  Barbie, The Quiet Girl
• Favorite Book: Albarrán Cabrera’s Photographic Syntax, Miho Kajioka’s Memories of Future
• Best Exhibit/Museum: the Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol show, Christian Marclay show, Cecily Brown’s show at the Met in New York, the Keith Haring retrospective, Women in Revolt, The Gucci Cosmos, Rubens & Women
• Best Music:  Miley Cyrus’ Flowers, Fear by the Seratones, Offering” from Gabriels
• Most memorable Duran Duran event:  DANSE MACABRE, the video for Black Moonlight, the tour – the Pittsburgh show, the NY show in Forest Hills, the UK tour
• Most looking forward to in 2024: Sleeping, Rose Bowl (Cruel World) show; shows in Europe, working on Reportage, a photo book

2022

• Events: Queen Elizabeth II dying and being able to go to events again
• Shows: Stephen Gill’s exhibit, the Uffizi Museum, Edvard Munch Museum, O in Las Vegas, Punch Drunk’s The Burnt City, Cages
• Favorite Movie: Parallel Mothers, The Power of the Dog
• Favorite TV: Stranger Things, The Andy Warhol Diaries
• Favorite Book: I’ll Be Looking at the Moon but I’ll Be Seeing You” by Hari Katragadda and Shweta Upadhyay
• Best Music: WHOOOSH! playlists, Allison Ponthier’s Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Lynks
• Most memorable Duran Duran event: October 31st, 2022: the first Duran Duran Halloween themed concert in Las Vegas, our Ibiza Weekend, the Queen’s Jubilee, Rock in Rio in Lisbon, headlining a show in Hyde Park, the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, 3 nights at The Hollywood Bowl, and winning the fan vote for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
• Most looking forward to in 2023: upcoming UK dates and a Halloween album coming in October!

2021

• Events: Isle of Wight Festival was great, Austin City Limits in America, shows in Birmingham at the 02
• Favorite Movie: The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Myra Breckinridge, Dune
• Best Music: Simon’s WHOOOSH! playlists
• Best Book: Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Stephen Gill Please Notify the Sun
• Best Podcast: I was on one with Brian Cox called Sing for Science
• Best TV: Midnight Mass, Ratched
• Best Duran Duran events: our shows, our album, his work with Astronomia
• Most looking forward to in 2022: Hope

2020

• Events: started writing music, logged thousands of digital photos, transferred written lists online, got to see my daughter more, did some filming with Mark Ronson, went to the Scottish Highlands for Burns Night, went to Pam Hogg’s fashion show at Victoria House, attened Warhol Retrospective at Tate Modern, the US Presidential election
• Favorite Movie: French Surrealist films and Jodorowsky films
• Best Music: Classical, instrumental albums with Wendy Bevan, ambient music, chill-out playlists, hip hop, and film music Nino Rota
• Best TV: Black Mirror, Stranger Things, Tiger King
• Best Duran Duran: receiving the Yuri’s Night award for the Kennedy Space Center performance
• Hope to never happen again: A pandemic. Lockdown

2019

• Event: 50th Anniversary of the moon landing, “John and I did a little work on our musical this year as well.”
• Best Book: The Pillar
• Favorite Movie: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
• Best Music: Billie Ellish, Lizzo
• Best TV: Black Mirror, The Crown
• Best Show/Exhibit: Stanley Kubrick exhibit at the London Design Museum, Ren Hang exhibition at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Leonardo DiVinci’s The Last Supper
• Most memorable Duran Duran event: Kennedy Space Center in July for the Apollo 11 moon walk “For me, it was my favourite Duran Duran moment of this year but also one of my favourites of my entire career.”
• Most looking forward to in 2020: the Duran Duran album, the show at the Isle of Wight and in Ireland, putting out my book, my album with Wendy Bevan

2018

• Event: Going to NASA at Cape Canaveral. “WOW is all I can say. This is one of America’s great cultural gems. It is a mind boggling, exciting, exhilarating experience. Completely awe-inspiring.”
• Favorite Show: Dulwich Picture Gallery, the Jusepe de Ribera show, the Picasso show at the Tate Modern
• Favorite Movie: Cold War, First Man, Hereditary
• Favorite TV: Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood programs. “Everyone keeps saying I need to watch “Black Mirror,” that it’s made for me!”
• Favorite Book: Japanese photographer, Daisuke Yokota
• Best Music: Culture II by Migos, “Narcos was the song of the year in the Taylor household”, Hive Mind by The Internet, Chic’s It’s About Time, Julia Holter Aviary, Anderson.Paak Oxnard
• Most looking forward to in 2019: “John and I have finished the first draft of our musical, my work with the Bloom Twins, My book got buried under many other things, but I am hoping my art book comes out next year. And my Japanese photography documentary will be getting in to shape next year. Most exciting of all will be going back in the studio with Duran. And 2019 is the build-up to the big ole anniversary in 2020!”
• Most memorable Duran Duran event: the BBC documentary and the take-over, Going back in the studio, our fragrance launch

2017

• Events: museums and galleries, the Royal Academy of the Arts, Matisse in the Studio, Jasper Johns Something Resembling the Truth, Dali / Duchamp exhibition, Edvard Munch exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, a Keith Haring exhibit in Milan, The Radical Eye: Modernist Photography from the Sir Elton John Collection at the Tate Modern, Basquiat: Boom for Real, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow for a Retrospective from Chaim Soutine
• Favorite Movie: Blade Runner 2049 and Dunkirk, The Beguiled, a documentary called “Sex, Fashion & Disco”
• Favorite TV: Twin Peaks
• Favorite Book:  Stephen Gill Night Procession
• Best Music: Dica, SZA Cntrl, Kelela’s Take Me Apart, Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN, Arca
• Most memorable Duran Duran event: the Buenos Aires Lollapalooza show, playing Hawaii, ending the tour in Tokyo, performing in Miami
• Most looking forward to in 2018: Sleeping! Finishing the documentary, working on the musical with John, upcoming shows in Dubai, some new recordings, our fortieth anniversary

2016

• Events: The deaths of David Bowie, Prince, and Leonard Cohen
• Favorite Shows: Michael Hoppen, The Ravens, My V&A short film I did for the V&A, the Victoria & Albert Museum, Elton John’s photo collection at the Tate Modern, Beyond Caravaggio at the National Gallery in London
• Favorite Movie: Nocturnal Animals, Tim Burton’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and The First Monday in May
• Favorite Book: Night City by Anthony Cannes; Daisuke Yokota, Matter / Burn Out
• Best Music: BLACKSTAR by David Bowie, Leonard Cohen YOU WANT IT DARKER, Nick Cave’s SKELETON TREE, The Weeknd’s STARBOY album. Seeing The Cure in concert, Bjork at Royal Albert Hall, Lazarus the Bowie musical, the last thing he gifted to us all before he left.
• Most memorable Duran Duran event: The Barclay Center, the show in North Carolina where we signed the petition, the Italian tour, the Eden Project in Cornwall, Buckingham Palace in March
• Most looking forward to in 2017: Finishing the musical with John, my photo book, Duran Duran’s 40th anniversary, working on more Duran Duran music.

2015

• Favorite Event: putting out an album, present Giorgio Moroder an award at GQ Man of the Year Awards, visiting Cuba
• Favorite Show: Alexander McQueen show at the V&A in London
• Best Music:  the Tame Impala album, Currents. Transformer by Lou Reed, Station to Station by Bowie, Caribou, Lana Del Rey’s Honeymoon album.
• Most memorable Duran Duran event: the release of Paper Gods, the tour, performing at the Hollywood Bowl for the first time, playing with Nile & Chic, the British tour “and holding the vinyl of our album and seeing the spot varnish”
• Most looking forward to in 2016: 2015 was “Tumultuous.” In 2016 we’ll be playing some concerts, going back to the studio with the Bloom Twins, the musical with John, my photo book coming out

2014

• Events: Seeing Lady Gaga perform at the Harper’s Bazaar party in New York City
• Favorite Book: British photographer called Stephen Gill
• Favorite Movie: Venus in Fur by Roman Polanski
• Best Music: Kate Bush at Hammersmith Apollo in London, FKA Twigs, Mark Ronson’s album
• Most looking forward to in 2015: Getting the album out and playing some live shows
• Most memorable Duran Duran event: Getting back in the studio

Year in Review interviews (C) Simon Le Bon, John Taylor, Nick Rhodes, Roger Taylor, DuranDuran.com