Diamond is the second studio album by the English band Spandau Ballet, released on 12 March 1982 by Chrysalis Records. As with their debut album, Journeys to Glory, all songs were produced by Richard James Burgess and written by band guitarist Gary Kemp. The music was inspired by a variety of genres, including the renewed interest in funk around Soho, American film scores with roots in eastern Europe, the second side of David Bowie's Low album, Pink Floyd records and the mood pieces of another English new wave band, Japan.

Burgess, Kemp and lead singer Tony Hadley had difficulties over the course of making the album. After the first song written for it, "Chant No. 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)", became the band's biggest hit, Kemp found it harder to churn out material to complete the project. Burgess began to exercise control over Hadley, who struggled with the vocals to the point of losing his temper and needing to take some time off. The recording sessions involved six different studios because of Burgess's busy schedule, and the band's decision to have a separate box set of 12-inch remixes of every song on the album in addition to the 7- and 12-inch single versions took even more of his time.

The next two singles, "Paint Me Down" and "She Loved Like Diamond", did not perform well, but another track from the album, "Instinction", was remixed by Trevor Horn and made the top ten in the UK. Because the new single had more of a pop feel than anything Spandau Ballet had released before, the nightclub crowd that the band had initially intended to represent lost interest in them, but Kemp then felt free to write pop songs on future projects without wondering if it was something their fans could dance to.

Diamond reached number 15 on the UK Albums Chart and received Gold certification from the British Phonographic Industry. Side two of the album, which Kemp intended as film music, did not impress reviewers and was widely criticized. The band was unhappy with how the entire album turned out and decided to end their relationship with Burgess. Horn was interested in some material Kemp had started for their next album but clashed with drummer John Keeble during rehearsals and decided to move on. Spandau Ballet chose to have Tony Swain and Steve Jolley join them in producing their next album, True, which was a huge success.

Diamond was re-released in a remastered and expanded two-disc special edition on 8 March 2010.

Background and development By the time Spandau Ballet had completed their first album, Journeys to Glory, their guitarist/songwriter Gary Kemp found that musical tastes around Soho were shifting toward funk. This eventually inspired him to write "Chant No. 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)", which became a number 3 hit on the UK Singles Chart in the summer of 1981 and the first song completed for Diamond. Its success added to the stress Kemp was already experiencing in having to write enough material to fill an album. In his autobiography I Know This Much: From Soho to Spandau, he wrote, "Unlike second marriages, second albums are notoriously difficult. Journeys had been developed over some time and played live before we went into the recording studio, with some songs being discarded at the last minute. It was a mission statement, cohesive and tight, with none of the indulgence that often plagues follow-ups."

Songs Spandau Ballet wanted to represent the young London nightclub crowd through their music,: Every seminal moment in British youth culture had had a band or artist that represented it: skiffle – Lonnie Donegan… punk – the Sex Pistols. We knew, even then, that Blitz and all it entailed and encouraged was going to be an important chapter in the story of London youth and their street-found fashions; and so, in a basement studio on Islington's Holloway Road, the Angel boys were busily trying to create a band who'd embody this latest twist in the tale. and "Chant No. 1" paid tribute to the newest hotspot, Le Beat Route.: There’s a claustrophobia that emanates from ‘Chant No. 1' that had everything to do with the club that’s eulogised in it. Le Beat Route was a small and unfrequented dive that had sad Coconut Grove decor, a long central bar and a small stage at the far end in front of a square dance floor. Ollie… started a night in this tired Greek Street dive that automatically attracted the ex-Blitz crowd and more. Suffering from writer's block as it climbed the charts, Kemp simply repeated the use of horns and group vocals from that hit in writing what would be the second single from the album, "Paint Me Down". A third track released before Diamond was completed, "She Loved Like Diamond", was inspired by his exposure to movie themes and musicals that had American Jewish music with roots in eastern Europe. It began side two of the vinyl and cassette editions of the album and was followed by a suite of three songs – "Pharaoh", "Innocence and Science", and "Missionary" – that was intended to suggest film music. His brother and band bass guitarist, Martin Kemp, told Smash Hits magazine in a 1982 interview that the suite was their effort to "get out of the Duran Duran league", but Gary Kemp more specifically revealed a few of his inspirations for that set of songs. In his autobiography he wrote that he was "wanting to attempt things in the vein of Bowie's second side of Low or the mood pieces by Japan." In 2021 he said he was "trying to make a [Pink] Floyd record, with soundscapes and the rest of it. We didn’t know if we were going to go prog or not. Obviously, things turned out very differently.

Recording Lead singer Tony Hadley had found himself more and more isolated from the other band members during the time that they traveled to promote their first album, and that isolation was only compounded as he had difficulty performing the vocals for Diamond while the band watched him through the glass from the control room; he attributed his struggle to the fact that he disliked several of the songs and felt his confidence was gone. Spandau Ballet chose to continue working with Journeys to Glory producer Richard James Burgess on Diamond, the recording of which was prolonged because of the need to use several different studios in order to accommodate Burgess's schedule.: The recording of the new album was becoming far too erratic for its own good. Owing partly to Richard’s now busy schedule… we couldn't get down to a solid run in one place and drifted through six different studios across London. Hadley was especially frustrated during the making of the album because of an escalating friction between him and Burgess, which began while recording "Chant No. 1"; although the music sessions went well, according to Kemp, Burgess wanted Hadley's voice to convey the "film noir quality of the lyrics by having Tony sing it quietly, restrained, and with a sense of paranoia. Tony has such a huge voice that Richard wanted him to relax it as much as possible" but was unable to elicit what he wanted to hear with Hadley standing and had him lie down to get the effect he and Kemp had in mind.

Hadley's discord with Burgess was most apparent when he had trouble singing "Paint Me Down" and the producer suspended a rug over two microphone stands and had him lie down underneath it to help him relax as he sang.: As I sweated, the rest of the band watched from behind the glass that separated the studio from the control room. Everyone was willing me to get it right, which only made matters worse. Each time I messed up a line I sensed a collective rolling of the eyes... It was while I was wrestling with 'Paint Me Down' that Richard Burgess… wanted to put me in a tent with a few candles to create a relaxed mood. Years later, band member Steve Norman commented, "It was a great idea, like [something Bowie producer] Tony Visconti would come up with." When Hadley pointed out that the backing vocals his bandmates were recording for the song were out of tune, Burgess's dismissal of his concerns left him even more frustrated.: When the band began laying down the backing vocals on ‘Paint Me Down’ it was clear to me they were flat. They sounded awful. Now it was my turn to watch in disbelief from the control room. I turned to Richard Burgess. ‘They’re out of tune,’ I said. I wanted to go back in and record my own backing vocals. He wouldn't have it. "It will be fine," he assured me. At that point, I realized he and I were on an utterly different wavelength. The backing vocals sounded out of tune to me, yet he was happy. Nothing made sense to me anymore. The song's number 30 peak on the UK Singles Chart came in the middle of recording the Diamond album, and while Kemp later admitted that he and Burgess were to blame for its disappointing showing, he was also sorry that Hadley was the one at whom everyone seemed to be pointing the finger.: During the recording of the album, "Paint Me Down" failed to get us on Top of the Pops and stalled at number thirty in the charts. The men who should have been taking the rap were me and Richard, but unfortunately the scapegoat for everyone's frustration became Tony. The tension mounted as Hadley continued to struggle with the rest of the songs while the band watched his sessions through the glass,: I don't even remember which track I was struggling with. I just remember losing it. Again, the rest of the band was watching from the control room. and it reached the breaking point the day he lost his temper and picked up a fire extinguisher; he got a hold of his senses before throwing it through the control-room window and instead walked out.: The day my temper finally snapped I grabbed a fire extinguisher and was about to hurl it through the control-room window. I was standing with a lump of metal in my hands, at absolute breaking point, and I thought. So this is how it feels to be the lead singer in a successful band. Wonderful. It was an ugly moment. In the end I dropped the fire extinguisher and walked out. He took a few days off to recover before returning to the studio.: For the next few days I stayed away from the studio…. With some misgivings, I went back and finished the album.

When the band finished recording the album, they played it for Chrysalis executives, whose faces sat frozen when it was over; none of them said anything.: When the album finished playing, no one said anything, probably because they couldn’t think of anything to say. There was just a row of stony faces, which spoke volumes. Kemp realized later that the band never got together to discuss what the album should be; they just left him to write songs without providing any feedback.: We’d never sat down and decided where the album was going and I —in my fearful bedroom — was allowed to ramble. While playing the album for Chrysalis, Kemp sensed that the side two suite was especially difficult for the executives to sit through.: During the 'difficult', esoteric second side there was some fidgeting He later defended those songs, arguing that they "were never realised with the panache they needed."

Critical reception