Stretching 'Rubber Soul': A New Spin on The Tribute CD

When Ben Lee was invited to appear on a tribute to the Beatles' landmark "Rubber Soul" album, the Australian indie rocker had but one concern. And it had nothing to do with the project's potential for blasphemy.

"There's all kinds of people who are so precious about these sorts of things," Lee says of revisiting a cherished piece of cultural history. "But if anything, I think people -- even purists -- should realize that the Beatles empowered thousands of people to make pop music of their own and that something like this is a fitting tribute."

So, Lee says, he worried only about this: "I just wanted to know if I could cover 'In My Life.' That's like the pinnacle for pop songwriters."

Though it's not often the case on a tribute project as artists fight for their favorite songs, Lee got his wish. And into the studio he went to make "In My Life" his own by transforming the song that John Lennon once called "my first real, major piece of work" into his own rendition, "sorrowful with a lot of tenderness."

Lee's cover is included on "This Bird Has Flown: A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles' 'Rubber Soul,' " due out Tuesday. The album, on which a bunch of critical darlings from the indie and singer-songwriter worlds take on "Michelle" and company, represents the high-water mark in the vast ocean of 2005 tributes.

Which is saying something. Album-length homages became a genre unto themselves ages ago, and this year's list of feted artists includes everybody from Queen, Queens of the Stone Age and the disco queen Donna Summer to Luther Vandross, Iron Maiden, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and U2. Twice. (Number of tribute albums U2 approved this year: zero. You don't need an artist's permission to record such an album. So, no, Paul and Ringo were not consulted.)

"I'd love to know what they think," says the project's producer, Jim Sampas. "But that's always so intimidating."

A compilation specialist, Sampas is the architect of several superlative CD tributes, including 2000's brilliant "Badlands: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen's 'Nebraska,' " for which he persuaded Chrissie Hynde, Los Lobos and Son Volt, among others, to re-record that album's bleak character sketches on four-track cassette in the spirit of Springsteen's demo-like originals.

"I just woke up one morning," Sampas recalls, "and thought, 'Four-track, "Nebraska!!!" ' It sounded crazy, but I guess I was insane enough to try to get the artists to do it. I thought they might find it interesting. And challenging."

Last fall, Sampas became fixated on the idea of doing something Beatles-related. He decided to zero in on a single, singular album, a la the Springsteen project, and "Rubber Soul," he says, was the obvious candidate (the original British version, not the edited U.S. edition that followed).

"Most tribute records run the gamut of somebody's career and feel a little bit scattered," Sampas says from his home in Holliston, Mass. "I think you get a wonderful continuity when you focus on one album. And 'Rubber Soul' has to be one of the most influential albums of all time. It's the first Beatles record that really dealt with the complexities of love. Suddenly they're writing these dark, minimalist pop songs with introspective lyrics. . . .

"What do you hear the most of on the radio today? Minimalist pop songs with introspective lyrics. So I'd almost argue that it's the most influential album ever."