Mid 80s-90s

In 1984, Jackson won eight Grammys at the 26th Annual Awards. That record is also held by the band Santana. He along with Quincy Jones won Producer of the Year (Non-Classical). Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance (Male) for Thriller, "Beat It" for Record of the Year and Best Rock Vocal Performance (Male). Best R&B Song and Best R&B Vocal Performance (Male) for "Billie Jean", finally, the album won Best Engineered Recording (Non-Classical). He won eight more awards at the 11th AMAs and became the youngest artist to win the Award of Merit. He won Favorite Male, Soul/R&B, and Pop/Rock Artist. Thriller won Favorite Soul/R&B and Pop/Rock Album. "Beat It" won Favorite Soul/R&B and Pop/Rock Video, and Favorite Pop/Rock Single.

The Victory Tour was the last tour Michael did with his brothers. They did 55 shows to approximately 2 million people, it was one of the highest-grossing tours of the decade bringing around $75 million. Don King, Chuck Sullivan, son of former the New England Patriots owner, Wlliam (Billy) Sullivan, and Joe Jackson wanted to earn additional revenue from ticket sales. Fans had to send a postal money order for $120 along with a special form to a lotttery to buy blocks of four tickets for $30 apiece. Michael was the only one against it, because it made it harder for African-Americans who couldn't afford the tickets. On July 5, Michael held a press conference after receiving a letter from an 11-year-old, who thought the Jacksons and promoters were being selfish and greedy. After the tour, Michael donated his share to charity. However, the tour was so financially bad for Billy and Chuck that they had to sell the Patriots in 1988. Chuck was so short during the tour, that he had to stop payment on a check for $1.9 million after Vancouver. The Jacksons and Sullivan came to an agreement to stop payment in exchange for larger revenue for the brothers.

Bad was released in 1987, his first album in five years. It's also the first to have five US number-one singles: "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", "Bad", "The Way You Make Me Feel", "Man in the Mirror", and "Dirty Diana". "Smooth Criminal" ranked at number 7. Bad won the 1988 Grammy for Best Engineered - Non Classical and 1990 Grammy for Best Music Video, Short Form for "Leave Me Alone". He won an Award of Achievement at the 1989 AMAs because of the five number one singles, and the first album to be number 1 in 25 countries and the best selling album worldwide in 1987 and 1988. It sold between 30 and 45 million copies worldwide by 2012. During the Bad world tour, it had 575,000 attendees in Japan, nearly tripling the previous record for a single tour. Seven shows were sold out at the Wembley Stadium with 504,000 in attendance, setting a Guinness World Record. The autobiography Moonwalk was released in 1988, it reached the top of New York Times bestsellers list and sold 200,000 copies. He released a film called Moonwalker, with live footage and short films with himself along with Joe Pesci. It was released direct-to-video and was the best-selling video cassette in the country. It was certified 8x Platinum in the US.