The Beatles’ Now and Then, is billed as the band’s final single and will always be a big deal. The track brings all four members of the Beatles together one last time. But as soon as the world heard about it, the debate began. Did AI create a Beatles reunion? Is John Lennon’s voice artificial? And did technology go too far? Well, The Beatles have finally set the record straight.
To understand Now and Then, we have to go back to the late 1970s. In the final years of his life, John Lennon recorded a series of demos.
Its mix features all four original members – Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with the late Lennon and George Harrison – and comes with a long history that includes an aborted mid-’90s attempt at a finished release.
There’s another headline-grabbing element to the eventual release of Now and Then though. As has been widely, and on occasion a little misleadingly reported, the track’s creation has been made possible thanks to the use of neural network technology. Or, as how some have more flatly termed it – AI.
This latter fact seems to have led to misconceptions among some fans, as the track’s co-producer Giles Martin, son of late Beatles producer George Martin, addressed the matter.
Speaking to Musicradar, Martin said: “I think there is this supposition that we used AI to recreate something, or to perhaps enhance John Lennon’s voice. This simply wasn’t the case. All we did was clean a cassette recording he had made all those years ago.”
