Elton John Diamonds (SDE Blu-Ray #31) Dec. 27th, 2024

[fredblue]

Nikita is one of my favorite EJ songs in his entire output. I always liked the music video to:



Tidbit: The fellow in the music video who plays the male border guard was a henchman in the Bond film The Living Daylights.

i haven't seen that video clip in 30 years!

Ken Russell at his most restrained..

 

[Michael Marshall]

oh yeah and while it was almost a relief that everyone involved in collating Diamonds conveniently forgot all about 1986's "Leather Jackets" it is a bit of a shame that the largely excellent 1995 "Made In England" album was so under-represented on the compilation besides "Believe", at the very least i'd have expected the title track to represent a post-70's punchier tune and that 2004's "Peachtree Road" and 2006's "The Captain & The Kid" were also totally airbrushed out of the picture

it might have been fun to hear "The Bridge" or "Tinderbox", or "Answer In The Sky" or "Turn The Lights Out When You Leave" in Atmos.

ahh.. maybe not.. i better get my coat, dear, it looks like rain!

I too, was disappointed that the "Made In England" album was overlooked once again, as I felt (and still do!) that this was his most complete and musically satisfying (and sonically too...) album from the 90's onward.

 

[fredblue]

I too, was disappointed that the "Made In England" album was overlooked once again, as I felt (and still do!) that this was his most complete and musically satisfying (and sonically too...) album from the 90's onward.

hard to describe the palpable gut-wrenching i felt when Greg Penny wasn't Producer again after the mostly brilliant (was never massively keen on “Bel-faaaast") "Made In England" album and the resultant general awfulness of "The Big Picture"

 

[key_wiz]

my favourite tidbit of trivia about "Nikita" is Bernie allegedly actually wrote it about a bloke and in a Classic case of misinterpretation with their "you wash, i'll dry" songwriting technique, Elton turned it into a love song with a woman!!

Nikita is a man's name after all... and Bernie apparently thought it was funny because Elton had joked about having interpersonal relations with a Russian soldier while he was on tour in the U.S.S.R. in 1979!

certainly made me feel differently about the track when i heard that bit of bar room banter...

a similarly funny incident like that was when Bernie was asked in an interview if he had ever been surprised by a melody Elton had set his Lyrics to. he replied that he had written this song in the 70's called "Hey Papa Legba", about mysticism and voodoo and when he finally heard the track Elton had unbelievably turned it into a big uptempo sh!t-kicking rocker with a wall of horns sound! needless to say it was relegated to a B-side some years later...

According to his autobiography, he wasn't joking.

 

[SeanSKA01]

Song for Guy is a pleasant surprise. Not really familiar with the song previously but it sure sounds sweet on this. Strange to me that this was a hit single (in the UK apparently), being an instrumental and all.

This is mind blowing in 5.1 on my (non-Atmos) system

 

[GilWave]

DR13 in not compressed. Maybe you mean lossy?

Sorry, yes. I was referring to the data being compressed so it will stream across various internet pipes - it is lower bandwidth than what is on physical media.

 

[jaybird100]

Song for Guy is a pleasant surprise. Not really familiar with the song previously but it sure sounds sweet on this. Strange to me that this was a hit single (in the UK apparently), being an instrumental and all.

It was also a hit, although to a lesser extent, here in the US, too. I noticed the version on this Blu-ray is a longer version than the single, and sounds really great in surround. This disc is, from what I can tell, the best fold-down from Atmos to 5.1, that I've heard yet.

 

[Bob Finholm]

I'm also happily luxuriating in the aural highs of the 'Diamonds' set.

Really enjoying the interesting comments regarding 'Honky Cat'. It reminded me of my older brother playing the 'Honky Chateau' 8-track continuously in his car back in the day. I remember DETESTING that song when I was 10 years old. Not sure why I hated it so much. I guess it was just too different for my pop music ears that were more attuned to Carpenters, Chicago, Bread and early solo Beatles.

Who knew that 50+ years later, it would become one of my favorite tracks? I still have the 8-track, by the way, and it still works! And my brother still has the same Cutlass (but that's another story). But the 8-track doesn't hold a candle to this new set.