★★★★★
In which a self-admitted mean old man approximates a cross between the young Paul Anka and the post-Bennington Reparata and the Delrons, only his voice is higher and his lyrics more considered. The whole first side, ending with the cheerfully perverse "Little Brother," is perfect pop moderne, and that's not where you'll find my own pick hit, the cheerfully normal "Love Will Keep Us Together."
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Modes of integrity: Sedaka's Back, compiled from two-plus English albums, sounded organic, while this star-time El Lay session sounds homogenized. Neil's voice has changed--the light girl-groupy moments have turned bitchy and the sentimentality is thick with incipient sobs. Figure best-ofs are his natural element and remember that only if he goes away can he come back again.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Produced by George Martin, whose projects with America and Jeff Beck were as essential as this excellent recording for Neil Sedaka to solidify Martin's post-Beatles reputation, the 1977 collection also contains some of Neil's best non-radio work, as important as Tommy James' In Touch album is to his legacy. Amarillo is the heart of the record, a song that was a minor hit, and the world is lesser for not being more familiar with its catchy chorus...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-28
★★★★★
While Neil Sedaka's career was having a second life on the Top 40 charts in 1976, Don Kirshner and RCA Records released a performance from the archives, Sedaka Live in Australia. With an orchestra conducted by ionel Huntington, this album finds this major talent at, of all places, the South Sydney Junior Leagues Club...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-28
★★★★★
Recorded at Manchester, England's Strawberry Studios with 10cc's Eric Stewart as engineer and the other three members of that band backing up Neil Sedaka, this project features lyricists Roger Atkins and Phil Cody collaborating with the singer, a big change for the man who worked so long and so well with Howard Greenfield. "That's When the Music Takes Me" and the title track, "Solitaire," would be lifted for the 1975 disc Sedaka's Back, finding success after being repackaged and re-promoted...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-28
★★★★★
Neil Sedaka released his second solo album, Circulate, in 1961 when he was at the peak of his powers as a hitmaking songwriter. Instead of emphasizing his original compositions on Circulate, he covered a bunch of pop standards, including such mainstays as "Smile," "All the Way," "Angel Eyes," and "Everything Happens to Me...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-28
★★★★★
Since Sedaka's Back was a hit, Neil Sedaka and co-producer Graham Gouldman saw no reason to mess with success on its follow-up, The Hungry Years. The record is essentially Sedaka's Still Back, complete with the same adult contemporary/MOR material and slick production that marked its predecessor. It also suffers from uneven material, but it's distinguished by a slow rearrangement of "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" and "Bad Blood," a duet with Elton John...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-28
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