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.

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.

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.

[5] 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".

[7] 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.

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.

[14] 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.

[17] 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.

[18] The tension mounted as Hadley continued to struggle with the rest of the songs while the band watched his sessions through the glass,[19] 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.

Mike Nicholls of Record Mirror had mixed feelings about that side, especially with regard to the album's closer, "Missionary": "At best its eastern chants and listless sitar show Spandau entering new avenues."

He also noted that "'Innocence and Science' has an obviously Oriental flavour, Gary Kemp trying his chops at 'cheng', which, in conjunction with the lapping water effects provides a quaintly Floydian 'Grantchester Meadows' atmosphere."

He laid the blame at the songwriter's feet: "Kemp has probably brought it upon himself by insisting on credence for his soul roots – nevertheless, Spandau's idiosyncratic, danceable pop has suffered by its association with funk instead of thriving on it."

[28] On AllMusic Dan LeRoy was also unimpressed by the experimental songs but thought Diamond was "an improvement on their debut";[26] in reviewing a reissue pairing their first two albums, Dave Thompson wrote, "There are moments spread across Diamond where it's already difficult to believe that you're contending with the same band that made such a splash upon their arrival," but thought a few songs, including the much-derided closer "Missionary", represented "where the group sets the controls for the heart of a sun far funkier than any visualized by sundry better-respected Britfunk merchants.

[34] Critics were differing in their opinions, with Smash Hits labeling it "cringeworthy"[44] and Dan LeRoy of AllMusic calling it "tuneless"[45] while that site's Dave Thompson thought it "represented the peak of Spandau's ambition".

[46] The music video included footage shot as the sun came up behind silhouettes of the seemingly naked band members as they smeared paint upon themselves, and the BBC refused to play it because of nudity.

[47] The music video for the third single, "She Loved Like Diamond", showed each of the band members in scenes with the song's deceased title character, either through flashbacks or on the grounds of the estate she was haunting.

[58] When the Horn remix of "Instinction" started to become popular with radio DJs, Kemp met with Burgess to communicate Spandau Ballet's decision to move on to another producer for future projects.

"[8] In a 1986 interview with Billboard magazine, Burgess said that he was also ready to move on because the amount of remixing required for the Diamond box set in addition to the 7- and 12-inch single mixes left him exhausted.

"[8] Dagger suggested producers Tony Swain and Steve Jolley, who had recently worked with Bananarama, so the band presented the duo with several songs Kemp had finished writing.

[71] The plan was to have them produce just one single to get a sense if they were right for the group before committing to anything more, and although "Communication" was considered, the song Jolley chose for their assignment was the "up-tempo, more obvious pop sing-along" titled "Lifeline".

[34] Spandau Ballet originally intended to represent the clientele of the trendy London nightclub the Blitz by playing "white European disco music",[75] but the disfavoring of the band by clubgoers that concerned Kemp was witnessed first-hand by music journalist Paul Simper, who, in his autobiography Pop Stars in My Pantry: A Memoir of Pop Mags and Clubbing in the 1980s, detailed Graham Smith's reactions to a couple of their songs.

Smith, a Blitz regular who had designed the cover art for Spandau Ballet's first two albums and their singles, encountered Simper while delivering the cover he had produced for "She Loved Like Diamond" and was already losing interest in the band, but upon the release of "Lifeline", Smith was visibly disappointed as he played a cassette of the new "mop-top-flavoured" song for Simper, who concluded, "Spandau were no longer making records for the cool kids.