A breakthrough commercial success for the band, the record peaked at number 1 in the UK Albums Chart on 18 February 1984, and reached the top 20 in numerous other countries around the world, including New Zealand, Netherlands, Sweden, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, and Australia. Receiving mostly positive reviews in the United Kingdom and the United States, Sparkle in the Rain was ultimately certified double platinum in the UK by the British Phonographic Industry, and significantly increased media interest in the band.
Signs of a possible change in musical direction into a more stadium-oriented sound first became apparent during a series of live performances in the summer months of 1983 by Simple Minds to huge European crowds. Lead singer Jim Kerr returned to a natural, unadorned facial and hair style, as "whatever they would have to say would be in the music." "Those gigs brought us back to the rawest kind of state, I think," Kerr said. "In places like that, 50,000 people, there's just no room for subtlety, and there's no need for it, there's no want for it." This foresaw the band coming into direct contact with U2 for the first time at the Belgian rock festival Torhout-Werchter; upon meeting the two bands immediately developed a strong liking for each other. Kerr remarked, "we saw a lot of ourselves in them and vice versa," and refuted the accusation that Simple Minds were merely joining the "new rock" led by U2. "We get this thing levelled at us of being influenced by them, but they're equally influenced by us. It might be in a much subtler sense, in dynamics or some of the sounds."
A new song, "Waterfront", was performed by the band when selected as "special guests" of headline acts U2 at Dublin's Phoenix Park in August 1983. "The song's throbbing pulse and enormous sense of space suggested the way the band were thinking," Adam Sweeting commented, "the elaborate, almost ornate arrangements of New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84) were receding into the distance. Simple Minds were making bigger music for bigger occasions." Shortly afterwards, the band were looking for a producer for their forthcoming sixth album; initially Alex Sadkin, of the Compass Point All Stars, was sought after due to his work with Grace Jones, but his schedule was incompatible with that of Simple Minds. Steve Lillywhite however, had wanted to produce for the band for a long time, and ultimately Simple Minds completed a three-way Celtic grouping along with U2's War and Big Country's The Crossing under Lillywhite.
In September 1983, Simple Minds travelled to Monnow Valley Studio in Rockfield, near Monmouth in Wales, for three weeks to work on some new material; Lillywhite accompanied them for the last two weeks to meet the musicians and suggest some modifications to their music. This material consisted of around six tracks developed during a session the band had spent at a recording studio called The Chapel in Lincolnshire in January, and other initial samples recorded in London's Nomis Studios before their performance at Phoenix Park. At Rockfield, most of the tracks were dramatically changed, as they had begun as demos consisting only of work by Mick MacNeil and Charlie Burchill, with some drum and bass machine sounds overlapping. With drummer Mel Gaynor now having fully integrated himself into the band, the songwriting was beginning to be influenced consistently from all group members.
The group relocated to Townhouse Studios in London by October, by which time their updated material retained "only a bassline or keyboard melody from the original four-track demo". As a producer, Lillywhite differed from Peter Walsh on the previous album by going with "the feel of the moment" rather than following "any preconceptions about how he wanted the album to turn out". He tried to emphasize musical unity between the band members; for instance, he pressed Jim Kerr to write lyrics for songs as soon as he could, such that his vocal melodies were influenced by the instrumentation. "On their earlier records, everyone's parts didn't really bear much resemblance to everyone else's," said Lillywhite. "Mick would be fiddling away like this, Charlie would be going like this, then Jim would come in and sing something completely different to what the other two were doing. Whereas I now think Jim is taking some of the melodies from the guitar and the keyboards, which he didn't use to, which makes it more like a song."
Burchill likened Lillywhite's producing style and manner to that of the film director Werner Herzog. Generally starting studio work at eleven o'clock in the morning, the band found the recording process repetitive, as each track was meticulously refined and sharpened through multiple iterations. With this leading to the group becoming tense and distracted, Lillywhite occasionally asked the band members to vacate the studio while he worked on mixing. The album's working title was Quiet Night of the White Hot Day, which eventually survived as a lyric in the complete album's seventh track "White Hot Day". The recording process drew to a completion with Lillywhite and the band adding some finishing touches to "Up on the Catwalk"; Jim Kerr sang some additional lines that had been stored in his notebook instead of name-dropping some extra famous people towards the song's end. Minor imperfections in phasing and pitch were then corrected to complete the album.
Due to a desire to release the album worldwide simultaneously, Simple Minds decided not to put the record out for sale before Christmas 1983, instead releasing Sparkle in the Rain on 6 February 1984. The first UK pressing was issued on white vinyl and the first Canadian pressing was issued on transparent vinyl; all other foreign editions were initially issued on black vinyl; the album immediately entered the UK Albums Chart at No. 1 to become the band's first chart-topper, and it remained in the charts for 57 weeks; among the band's records, only Once Upon a Time has bettered this chart run. The first Canadian pressing was issued on transparent vinyl (but using the standard green/red Virgin label instead of the custom design); the album peaked at No. 14 in the Canadian RPM national album chart. Sparkle in the Rain was certified gold in Canada for selling over 50,000 units in that country, and topped the New Zealand Albums Chart for two weeks, further remaining in their charts for eighteen weeks. Sparkle in the Rain also peaked at No. 2 in both Sweden, charting for six weeks, and the Netherlands, charting for thirty weeks. By 1988 Sparkle in the Rain had sold approximately one million-and-a-half copies worldwide.
Sparkle in the Rain produced three UK Top 40 singles. The first was "Waterfront", peaking at No. 1 in the New Zealand Singles Chart and charting for thirteen weeks. It also reached No. 13 in the UK Singles Chart, and remained in the charts for ten weeks. It remains one of the band's signature songs to this day. The album was also preceded by the release of "Speed Your Love to Me" which reached No. 20 in the UK, although "Up on the Catwalk" fared less well; released in March 1984, the single only managed a peak of #27.
Virgin Records reissued Sparkle in the Rain as a remastered edition on 21 October 2002; this edition features improved sound quality and faithfully reproduced artwork and packaging from the original record. Around 2006, a set of eight demos for the album from 1983 were leaked to the internet. The drumming for "Speed Your Love To Me" is less dramatic, while "Book of Brilliant Things" is driven by a much stronger bass line than the album version. "White Hot Day" is at a slower tempo, and "Shake Off the Ghosts" sounds more related to the instrumental B-side "Brass Band in Africa" at this stage.
On 16 March 2015, a new 4CD/DVD deluxe remastered boxset of Sparkle In the Rain was released, containing B-sides and remixes on Disc 2 and live performances and radio sessions on Discs 3 and 4. The DVD features both a regular DVD-Video layer and a DVD-Audio layer. The DVD-Video layer contains a surround sound mix of the album in both 5.1 DTS (24/96 - 1509 kbit/s) and 5.1 Dolby Digital (448 kbit/s), along with a new, high resolution (LPCM stereo 24bit/96 kHz) stereo mix. The DVD-Audio layer contains a new, high resolution (24/96), MLP stereo mix and a high resolution (24/96), MLP 5.1 mix, as well as the three promotional videos for the singles and three TV performances. These new stereo and 5.1 mixes were created by Steven Wilson in 2014 and mastered at Abbey Road Studios by Andrew Walter. Unfortunately, a manufacturing error resulted in faulty DVDs and a missing paragraph in the liner notes in the early copies of the deluxe boxset release. This error was subsequently resolved, with owners of the faulty disc being asked to email Universal, who sent out replacement discs and booklets. Subsequent copies of the box set featured the corrected DVD disc and booklet. The corrected DVD can be identified by the matrix number in the centre of the disc (Matrix/Runout (DVD Layer 0): 06025 470 143-2 50 01 + 53747525 - Matrix/Runout (DVD Layer 1): 06025 470 143-2 51 01 + 53747523 A A)
Released at the same time as the box set was a Blu-Ray Audio package that contained the original 1984 stereo mix along with Steven Wilson's 2014 stereo and 5.1 surround sound mixes. Initial copies of this Blu-Ray had a mono mix instead of Steven Wilson's 2014 stereo mix, and problems with the 5.1 mix were acknowledged too. As with the DVD in the box set, Universal supplied a corrected disc to owners and subsequent copies of the Blu-Ray featured the corrected disc in the box. Matrix numbers help distinguish the corrected Blu-Ray from the faulty one (Matrix/Runout: 56100044/00602537973552V3 S 21). The disc is a High Fidelity Pure Audio Blu-Ray that features no video content. Audio formats available on this Blu-Ray are stereo (2.0) PCM (24bit/96 kHz) on both the original stereo mix and Wilson's 2014 stereo mix, as well as 5.1 PCM (24bit / 96 kHz) and 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio (24bit / 96 kHz) versions. Although mentioned on the Blu-Ray disc, there is no Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track.
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