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.

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.

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.

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.

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.