Paul McCartney has revealed on UK radio that use of artificial intelligence (AI) allowed to create a “final” song by the Beatles. The track will be released sometime later this year, but fans on social media have been split in their reaction to the news.
John Lennon's voice has been "extricated" from an old demo provided by the late English singer and songwriter's widow Yoko Ono in 1994. The title of the song was not mentioned by one of the two surviving members of the iconic band, but reports say it is possibly a 1978 composition called "Now And Then." Lennon is decribed as having made the demo on a cassette titled ‘For Paul’ shortly before his death in 1980.
English band the Beatles (from the top), John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Paul McCartney arrive at the airport in Tokyo, in the 1960's.
© AFP 2023 / -
According to Paul McCartney, the idea for the project was triggered by the release of Peter Jackson's Get Back documentary, where dialogue editor Emile de la Rey trained computers to recognise the Beatles' voices and separate them from background noises.
“He [Jackson] was able to extricate John’s voice from a ropey little bit of cassette... We had John’s voice and a piano and he could separate them with AI. They tell the machine, ‘That’s the voice. This is a guitar. Lose the guitar’... So when we came to make what will be the last Beatles’ record, it was a demo that John had [and] we were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI. Then we can mix the record, as you would normally do. So it gives you some sort of leeway,” said the musician, who had played bass guitar, shared songwriting and lead vocal efforts for the band.
However, users on the internet differed in their reaction to this AI meddling with the iconic voices of the legendary musicians. Many simply commented, "Why?" or speculated whether it was simply a ploy to make more money.
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