Neil Sedaka - Laughter & Tears (1999)

Tracklist:

01. Standing On The Inside
02. Love Will Keep Us Together
03. Solitaire (Live)
04. The Other Side Of Me
05. A Little Lovin'
06. Lonely Night (Angel Face)
07. Brighton
08. (I'm A Song) Sing Me
09. Breaking Up Is Hard To Do (Ballad Version)
10. Laughter In The Rain
11. Cardboard California
12. Bad Blood
13. The Queen Of 1964
14. The Hungry Years
15. Betty Grable
16. Beautiful You
17. That's When The Music Takes Me (Live)
18. Our Last Song Together

As the original subtitle "The Best of Neil Sedaka Today" ("today" being 1976) indicates, this compilation covers the period of Sedaka's mid-'70s comeback. In 1973, he signed to the PolyGram label, which released his records on its MGM and Polydor imprints in the U.K., resulting in a series of hit singles and LPs over the next few years; he then moved on to Elektra Records. The tracks here are drawn from his British albums The Tra-La Days Are Over, Laughter in the Rain, Show Goes On: Live at the Royal Festival Hall, and Overnight Success. (In the U.S., where the material was issued on Elton John's Rocket Records imprint, it was compiled differently into such American LPs as Sedaka's Back and The Hungry Years.) The British hits "Standing on the Inside," "A Little Lovin'," "The Queen of 1964," and "Our Last Song Together" are included, while the earlier hits "Beautiful You" and "That's When the Music Takes Me," originally recorded for RCA, are present in the form of a new re-recording of the former and a live take of the latter. Also included are Sedaka's versions of his compositions that were hits for others during the period, "Solitaire" (again, a live recording), "Love Will Keep Us Together," and "Lonely Night (Angel Face)" (the last two, of course, done by the Captain & Tennille). Although this is not a U.S. hits set, the big American hits "Laughter in the Rain" and "Bad Blood," plus the slow reworking of "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" are here, too, though not lesser stateside Top 40 entries like "The Immigrant" and "Love in the Shadows." Thus, this is not the perfect compendium of the Sedaka ‘70s comeback for both sides of the Atlantic, but it does feature the highlights of his 1973-1976 resurgence.