The Diving Board
| The Diving Board | ||||
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| Studio album by Elton John | ||||
| Released | 13 September 2013 | |||
| Recorded | January 2012, January 2013 at The Village, Los Angeles, California | |||
| Genre | Rock, soft rock, vocal jazz | |||
| Length | 57:45 | |||
| Label | Capitol (US/Canada), Mercury | |||
| Producer | T-Bone Burnett | |||
| Elton John chronology | ||||
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| Singles from The Diving Board | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Aggregate scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 71/100 |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| The Guardian | |
| The Independent | |
| Los Angeles Times | |
| Rolling Stone | |
The Diving Board is the 31st studio album by British singer-songwriter Elton John. It is the second of his studio releases since 1979's Victim of Love without any of his regular band members. The album was released in the United Kingdom on 16 September 2013, and debuted at No. 3 on the UK album chart, his highest charting studio album in that country since 2001's Songs from the West Coast, and at No. 4 on the Billboard 200. It is also his highest-charting solo album in the United States since Blue Moves in 1976. However, after just eight weeks the album fell off the charts completely.
The album's premiere single, "Home Again", was released on 24 June 2013, the same day the album became available for pre-order. On 28 August 2013, a video for "Mexican Vacation (Kids in the Candlelight)" was released on YouTube.
The album was written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin and produced in Los Angeles by The Union producer T-Bone Burnett. Burnett suggested that John return to the piano, bass and drums format of his very early years and the result, John says, is "the most exciting solo record I've done in a long, long time."The Diving Board was initially written in two days.
The album's release date was pushed back: though the record was originally planned for release in the fall of 2012, it was revealed on Taupin's website that it would instead be released in February 2013 for promotional reasons. Later, it was pushed back again.
It was revealed on 28 September 2012 in Rolling Stone magazine that John was dissatisfied with the balance on the album and that he had started to write more new songs for the album. He believed that many of the songs had a theme and that he wanted to write more songs after sitting on the project for so long.
During a concert at the Perth Arena in Perth, Australia on 10 November 2012, John revealed that The Diving Board's release would be pushed back further, to May 2013. The delay in release was because John was to record more material for the album with Burnett in January 2013.
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Wikipedia