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Nick’s Favorite Things

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

I’d love to see space travel become something more democratic. I’d love to see a man (or woman) on the moon again, or on Mars!
Nick Rhodes, Duran Duran

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

MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO IN 2021
Normality!
Joy!
Hope!
Sensitivity!
Regaining empathy around the world!
People caring more about the environment and other nations!
The end of this wretched virus!
Duran Duran putting out an album!
Duran Duran playing concerts!
Nick Rhodes, DuranDuran.com

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

I often find myself completely dependent on John Taylor for my flow of modern music because John consumes more music than anyone I’ve ever met in my whole life. He is very kind to share the music he thinks I might like too.
Nick Rhodes, DuranDuran.com

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.

On my birthday we played in Verona, which is a startling gorgeous arena, and the band organized a tenor to come on stage and sing “Happy Birthday” to me. I was quite touched.
Nick Rhodes, DuranDuran.com

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

Barbarella

Barbarella is a dedicated Duranie who saw her first Duran Duran show in 1984 and The Power Station in 1985. She channels her passion for the band into DuranDuranies.com, sharing unique insights and engaging with the community.