Rubáiyát: Elektra's 40th Anniversary

Rubáiyát is a compilation album, released in 1990 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Elektra record label. The concept was to feature present-day Elektra artists covering songs from the historic catalogue of recordings of Elektra Records and its sister label Asylum Records.^[2]

Two long-running Elektra artists—Jackson Browne and the Cure—were featured in a double capacity. They were featured as performing artists (covering songs from Elektra's early canon) and were also represented by having songs that they had recorded for Elektra, covered by newer Elektra artists. Carly Simon was the only solo artist to have two songs covered on the collection^[a] while the Eagles were the only group to share that distinction.

A promotional version was also released featuring not only the commercially released version of the album, but also a second version featuring each recording in its original incarnation. Another promotional release was a five-song EP consisting of songs from the album redone by John Oswald using his Plunderphonics techniques. The EP's first track, "O'Hell", combined snippets of the original version of "Hello, I Love You", the cover by the Cure contained on this release, plus 17 other songs by the Doors.

The British band Happy Mondays, having covered South African musician John Kongos' 1971 hit "Tokoloshe Man" on its final cut, originally recorded a cover of its predecessor "He's Gonna Step on You Again" for the album, before deciding to instead recycle it for their studio album Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches and keep it as a single (under the shortened title "Step On"), which went on to be a hit for them earlier that year, and replaced it with such cover.

Anita Baker recorded a cover of "You Belong to Me" (originally by The Doobie Brothers and popularized by Carly Simon; not to be confused with the closing track of her 1988 album Giving You the Best That I Got of the same name co-written by Terry Britten, Billy Livsey and Graham Lyle) of which she would later re-record for her 1994 album Rhyhm of Love and release as a single in 1995.

The double album was produced by Lenny Kaye, guitarist of the Patti Smith group, who also wrote the liner notes. Group Leaders of the New School, which included future hip hop star Busta Rhymes, was the lone rap act to be included on the compilation.^[2]