Thriller (Michael Jackson album) gifted vocalist". "Rolling Stone" critic Stephen Holden likened his vocals to the "breathless, dreamy stutter" of Stevie Wonder, and wrote that "Jackson's feathery-timbred tenor is extraordinarily beautiful. It slides smoothly into a startling falsetto that's used very daringly." With the release of "Thriller", Jackson could sing low—down to a basso low C—but he preferred to sing higher because pop tenors have more range to create style. "Rolling Stone" critic Christopher Connelly wrote that Jackson was now singing in a "fully adult voice" that was "tinged by sadness". "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)", credited to James Ingram and Quincy Jones and "The
Thriller (Michael Jackson album) and that Jackson may be hiding his true emotions behind "layers of impenetrable, gauzy veils". Rockwell nonetheless deemed "Thriller" "a wonderful pop record, the latest statement by one of the great singers in popular music today" and that there are "hits here, too, lots of them". Rockwell believed it helped breach "the destructive barriers that spring up regularly between white and black music", especially as "white publications and radio stations that normally avoid "black music" seem willing to pretend he isn't black after all". In "The Village Voice", Robert Christgau said "this is virtually a hits-plus-filler job, but at such