The Beatles released the song "Now and Then" with John Lennon's voice reconstructed by AI

Legendary band The Beatles presented the song "Now and Then" with John Lennon's vocals recreated with the help of artificial intelligence technologies.

Here's What We Know

The Beatles originally tried to refine Lennon's demo recording in the mid-1990s for the Anthology albums. Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were then able to record "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love" over Lennon's vocals.

However, "Now and Then" was difficult because of the poorly recognisable piano in the original recording. The technology of the time did not allow to separate Lennon's vocals. As a result, the work stalled and the song remained unfinished.

A breakthrough came in the early 2020s, when director Peter Jackson, for the film Get Back, developed technology to separate components of old recordings.

McCartney and Starr were able to superimpose their parts over Lennon's vocals. Producer Giles Martin added strings and McCartney played Harrison-style lead guitar.

Despite some doubts from fans, the members of the project are happy with the resulting work.

"‘Now and Then,’ it’s probably like the last Beatles song. And we’ve all played on it, so it is a genuine Beatle recording"," McCartney emphasised.

Go Deeper:

• AI helped "extract" John Lennon's voice from an old demo tape for The Beatles to release their last song
• Paul McCartney has clarified that there is nothing artificial about The Beatles' AI-created song

Source: The Verge