In the Dark is the twelfth studio album (nineteenth overall) by the Grateful Dead. It was recorded in January 1987, and released on July 6, 1987.
In the Dark was the band's first album in six years, and its first studio album since 1980's Go to Heaven. It became unexpectedly popular, achieving double platinum certification in the U.S. It reached No. 6 on the Billboard 200 chart, the Grateful Dead's only top ten album. "Touch of Grey" peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100, the band's only top forty single;[4] it also became a frequently played music video on MTV. "Hell in a Bucket" and "Throwing Stones" (for which videos were also made) also achieved significant album-oriented rock radio airplay.
Production
In the Dark was recorded in just a week, between January 6 and 13, 1987 at Marin Veterans Memorial Auditorium, San Rafael, California, with production by Jerry Garcia and John Cutler. Most of the songs had been played by the Dead since 1982 or 1983. After the critically panned Go to Heaven, which contained songs that were mostly under a year old, the maturity of In the Dark was significantly more appreciated.
Since the band had been playing the songs for some time, they decided to record basic tracks for the album in a darkened theater ("In the Dark") with no audience, on a stage with the same lighting as they would use on tour all to have the band perform in a more comfortable, familiar setting. The idea was to capture the "feel" they had for the songs as if they were playing them to a live audience.
Drummer Bill Kreutzmann reminisced, "We ran all the electric instruments through amplifiers in the basement, in isolation rooms, and kept the drums bright and loud on stage. Everything was fed to a recording truck parked outside the venue. Everybody played their parts in real time, together. When we took breaks, we'd go into the wings by the stage door and sit there and talk about what we'd just done. Talking about the music, then going right out to play the music, then talking about it some more was something that we really should've done more often — the analysis served the songs and the camaraderie served the band. It really put us in a good spot."[5]
They then brought these recorded tracks to the studio and, if needed, made additional overdub recordings to fix minor problems with instrumental or vocal parts.
Garcia spoke about the recording in an interview; "Marin Vets turns out to be an incredibly nice room to record in. There's something about the formal atmosphere in there that makes us work. When we set up at Front Street to work, a lot of times we just sort of dissolve into hanging out. Going in Marin Vets without an audience and playing just to ourselves was in the nature of an experiment..."[6]
In the Dark was released on CD in 1987 by Arista Records[6] before being re-released in 2000 by BMG International. It was then remastered, expanded, and released with new cover art as part of the Beyond Description (1973–1989) 12-CD box set in October 2004. The remastered version was later released separately on CD, on April 11, 2006, by Rhino Records.
Cover art
The cover art for the album was designed by Randy Tuten. The lettering forms the shape of an eye. Inside the lettering are photos of the band members' eyes. On the original LP, the photos were right side up, but when the album was released on CD in 1987, the photos were upside down.[7] Though the band joked that the extra eye belonged to the Ayatollah Khomeini, it actually belonged to their long-time promoter, Bill Graham.[6]
Note: "My Brother Esau" (written by Weir and Barlow), the B-side of the "Touch of Grey" single, was omitted from the LP and CD releases of In the Dark, but was included on the cassette as the fourth track, as well as the 2004 reissue as the eighth track.
