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80s pop idols Duran Duran have been awarded a special BBC4 tribute night

80s pop idols Duran Duran have been awarded a special tribute evening on BBC4 to mark the band’s 40th anniversary.

The highbrow arts channel said the group, who have sold more than 100m records, had earned the honour through their fusion of “fashion, design, art and technology with timeless music.”

‘Highs and lows’

A Night With Duran Duran, on June 29, includes There’s Something You Should Know in which band members Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, John Taylor and Roger Taylor talk “more candidly than ever before about the highs and lows they have endured together over the years.”

In a second film, the Birmingham band, catapulted to fame during the New Romantic era, discuss their influences from the worlds of film and art.

They include Blade Runner, Andy Warhol, the BBC science show Tomorrow’s World and cult film Barbarella.

‘No Duran without BBC’

Bassist John Taylor said: “Without the BBC, there would be no Duran Duran. Forty years ago this October, the BBC first aired Barbarella.”

Taylor said: “It was while watching that late-night screening of the Jane Fonda sci-fi epic that members of a burgeoning Birmingham post-punk band decided the name of one of the films characters – Durand Durand – would make for a cool and unusual band name.”

Jan Younghusband, BBC Music Head of Commissioning, said she was “thrilled” that the BBC was celebrating “one of the world’s most influential and successful bands across the last four decades.”

Mark Ronson and Nile Rodgers contribute to the programmes, which include “previously unseen archive footage and rare demo tapes”.

Read moreNOW! That’s What I Call Music 100 – top-selling compilation celebrates pop centenary

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