Record:Bad

After the phenomenal success of his previous album, "Thriller" (1982), which sold a record 51 million copies worldwide, "Bad" arrived in stores in 1987 with the largest advance orders for any album ever. That same day, CBS aired the prime-time special "Michael Jackson: The Magic Returns," which premiered Jackson's 17-minute Bad video, directed by Martin Scorsese. Debuting at #1 on both Pop and R&B album charts, "Bad" spun off five #1 pop singles and became the second-best-selling album in history after "Thriller." The "Bad" tour -- Michael's first ever as a solo artist - began in Japan and hit 127 dates in 15 countries, playing to nearly five million fans. By its conclusion in 1989, the tour had set a world-record gross of more than $125 million. The Bad single "Leave Me Alone" earned the Grammy Award for Best Video, and Sony Music (then CBS Records) honored Jackson as the Top-Selling Recording Artist of the 1980s, with sales of more than 110 million records worldwide. President Bush proclaimed Michael Jackson the Artist of the Decade.