The Definitive Collection

1	Breaking Up Is Hard to Do Fast Version 2:18
2	Oh! Carol 2:16
3	Stairway to Heaven 2:41
4	Calendar Girl 2:39
5	Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen 2:39
6	Next Door to an Angel 2:37
7	Rainy Day Bells 2:59
8	Going Nowhere 3:54
9	You 5:33
10	Laughter in the Rain 2:50
11	The Immigrant 3:46
12	Solitaire Live 4:49
13	Love Will Keep Us Together 3:50
14	Bad Blood 3:09
15	The Hungry Years 4:06
16	Should've Never Let You Go / Dara Sedaka 4:18
17	Been There Done That 3:55
18	Breaking Up Is Hard to Do Slow Version 3:17
19	Where the Boys Are previously unreleased / Bonus Track / Demo Version 2:22
20	It Hurts to Be in Love previously unreleased / Bonus Track / Demo Version 2:31
21	What a Surprise Bonus Track 3:07
22	Junkie for Your Love Bonus Track 4:31

Barnes & Noble

If there’s any justice in the world of pop music, Neil Sedaka will one day find his name enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Hip he may never be, but this proto-singer/songwriter is a perennial talent whose career continues to stretch across the decades. Composing and performing snappy, compact pop songs since the late 1950s, as well as beautifully crafted ballads, Sedaka has consistently exhibited a knack for the stick-in-your-head hook, from early hits like “Calendar Girl” and “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” to mid-career gems such as “Laughter in the Rain,” “Bad Blood" (his smash duet with Elton John), and “The Hungry Years” -- not to mention the Sedaka songs made popular by others (“Love Will Keep Us Together”). This fine collection brings the whole ball of wax together, mixing durable hits with other superior tracks that add luster to a still-undervalued reputation. William Pearl

All Music Guide

From all appearances, Razor & Tie's 2007 compilation The Definitive Collection surely seems to live up to its title. It weighs in at 22 tracks and the back cover claims that it is a "celebration of Neil Sedaka's 50 years making music, from his first recordings in 1957 to his most recent work. The first career-spanning collection of its kind." Well, that's true to a certain extent -- it is the first to attempt to survey everything Sedaka's done from 1957 to 2007, so in that sense it is a first, and it's also a celebration since it has his biggest songs, from "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" through "Bad Blood." However, it doesn't have the original versions of these songs from the '50s and '60s: it has 1991 re-recordings that are a little stiff and overly polished, but Sedaka is thankfully in good voice. For those who realize this Definitive Collection is a combination of re-recordings and originals and don't care that his earliest and biggest songs are present in latter-day versions, this isn't a bad disc, since it does have all of his biggest songs as well as good notes by Gene Sculatti. And for hardcore fans, there are some additional enticements: demos of "Where the Boys Are" and "It Hurts to Be in Love," plus "What a Surprise" and "Junkie for Your Love" making their CD debut. Stephen Thomas Erlewine