The rapid development of artificial intelligence is occupying the whole world, and of course music too. For example, Beatles bassist and singer Paul McCartney announced that he is using the new technology to complete one of the legendary band’s final songs.
After the news caused controversy on social media, McCartney clarified in a statement exactly how AI will be used in the project.
McCartney uses AI to restore old John Lennon recordings
Many Beatlemaniacs feared that the machine, now quite adept at imitating human creative creations, would ‘compose’ the song on its own. However, Paul McCartney underlined on his Twitter account on Thursday evening June 22 that this is not the case.
“We have some confusion and speculation about [den Song] perceived,” wrote the singer. “I can’t say too much about it at this point, but to be clear, nothing was created artificially or synthetically. It’s all real and we really record everything ourselves.”
Been great to see such an exciting response to our forthcoming Beatles project. No one is more excited than us to be sharing something with you later in the year.
We’ve seen some confusion and speculation about it. Seems to be a lot of guess work out there. Can’t say too much…
— Paul McCartney (@PaulMcCartney) June 22, 2023
McCartney also added the role AI technology plays in the track: “We restored a few existing recordings – a process that has been going on for years.” The idea of using AI to resurrect the Beatles came from the rock Iconic through the documentary The Beatles: Get Back, directed by multiple Oscar winner Peter Jackson. Jackson, who helped develop groundbreaking new technologies for his “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, used AI to extract the “Working Class Hero” singer’s voice and piano playing from old tape recordings of John Lennon. In exactly the same way, McCartney will bring his deceased bandmate back to life for one final song.
According to Paul McCartney, we can expect the finished work by the end of this year. It is rumored to be Lennon’s 1978 demo Now And Then. Two other Lennon solo demos, Free as a Bird and Real Love, were released as Beatles productions in 1995.