Neil Sedaka, legendary singer-songwriter behind hits like “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do,” “Bad Blood,” “Laughter in the Rain” and “Calendar Girl,” has died, a rep confirms to Variety. He was 96.

A Brooklyn native and a veteran of the legendary “Brill Building” hit factory of the early ’60s, Sedaka scored three No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and nine in the Top 10, primarily during his peak years in the early 1960s and a mid-’70s comeback assisted by Elton John (who performed with him on the 1975 No. 1 “Bad Blood”).

Sedaka also wrote many songs that were hits for other artists, most notably Connie Francis’ 1958 hit “Stupid Cupid” and, 17 years later, the Captain and Tennille’s breakthrough chart-topper “Love Will Keep Us Together.” He continued to tour and record for many years after his commercial peak.

Over the course of his seven-decade-plus career, Sedaka was nominated for five Grammy awards (including one at the second-ever edition of the show in 1959). In 1983, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and in 1978 received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

“This is a gift I was born with,” Sedaka wrote on his website. “My main objective is to always top the last collection, raise the bar and reinvent Neil Sedaka.”

A member of the same Brooklyn generation that produced Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Carole King and many others, Sedaka was born on March 13, 1929 and grew up in the borough’s Brighton Beach neighborhood. He showed early musical aptitude and his second-grade teacher recommended piano lessons; within a couple of years he had successfully auditioned for a scholarship to the Juilliard School of Music’s Preparatory Division for Children, which he continued to attend.

While he initially pursued classical music, he was bitten by the pop music bug as a teen. At the age of 13, a neighbor heard him playing piano and introduced him to her son, Howard Greenfield, who was three years older. However, the pair began a songwriting partnership that was to take them to the top of the pop charts multiple times over the following 25 years.

Sedaka began performing during his years at Abraham Lincoln High School, and after graduating he formed a doo-wop group with classmates called the Linc-Tones, after the school. The group released several singles that were local hits before Sedaka left in 1951 to launch a solo career; the Linc-Tones eventually evolved into the Tokens, who scored a global smash in 1961 with “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

But by that time Sedaka and Greenfield were staples of the Brill Building, along with Diamond, King, Ellie Greenwich, Jeff Barry, Cynthia Weil, Barry Mann and many others. He and Greenfield scored their first hit with Francis and “Stupid Cupid,” who followed with another song from the duo, “Where the Boys Are,” which would be her biggest hit.

Sedaka parlayed that success into a solo deal with the RCA Victor label, and soon had hits of his own with “The Diary,” “Oh! Carol” (written for Carole King — the pair had dated in high school — who followed with “Oh! Neil”), ” Stairway to Heaven,” “Calendar Girl,” “Little Devil,” “Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen,” “Next Door To An Angel,” and “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” and others.

However, the advent of the Beatles and the British Invasion signaled a major change in pop culture, and Sedaka sidelined his solo career and focused on songwriting. He and Greenfield wrote hits for Frank Sinatra (“The Hungry Years”), Elvis Presley (“Solitaire”), Tom Jones (“Puppet Man”), the Monkees (“When Love Comes Knocking At Your Door”), the Fifth Dimension (“Workin’ on a Groovy Thing”) and others.

In 1969, with his career at a low ebb, Sedaka found unexpected success in Australia, where his song “Star-Crossed Lovers” became a major hit. The success gave his career a boost and the title track of his 1972 album “Solitaire” — a collaboration with lyricist Phil Cody — was covered and turned into a hit by both the Carpenters and Andy Williams. The album was a success in the U.K., and a track from it, “Beautiful You,” was Sedaka’s first solo chart appearance in the U.S. in a decade.

He continued working in the U.K. and marked a cap on his long collaboration with Greenfield with the 1973 album “The Tra-La Days Are Over,” which significantly included his version of “Love Will Keep Us Together.” Also around this time, he and Cody were enlisted to write English lyrics for a new Swedish quartet calling themselves Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid. The song became “Ring Ring,” a major hit in Europe and the first of many smashes for the group that was quickly rechristened ABBA.

In 1973, Sedaka met longtime fan Elton John at a party in London, and he soon signed with the superstar’s new record label, Rocket. This played no small role in the resurgence of Sedaka’s career. Several of his recent songs were compiled into an album titled “Sedaka’s Back,” released late in 1974, and just months later he had his first U.S. No. 1 in nearly 13 years with “Laughter in the Rain.” The success of the Captain & Tennille’s version of “Love Will Keep Us Together” followed in short order, and suddenly Sedaka was a major star again.

A second album on Rocket, “The Hungry Years,” followed, and featured another No. 1 single in 1975 with “Bad Blood,” which included an uncredited Elton John on harmony vocals. He scored another Top 10 hit the following year with a slowed-down remake of his early hit “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.”

https://variety.com/2026/music/news/neil-sedaka-dead-singer-songwriter-breaking-up-is-hard-to-do-1236675098/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5839111&forum_id=2Vannesa#49700778)

mustve been haunting to live and die over this timeline. like a wholesome version of that black mirror episode where the woman goes back to the 80s to be with her lesbian lover.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5839111&forum_id=2Vannesa#49700857)

Then I realized I was thinking of Jon Secada

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5839111&forum_id=2Vannesa#49700869)