In a remarkable fusion of past and present, the voice of the late John Lennon has been resurrected through the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to finalize a long-unfinished Beatles song. Sir Paul McCartney, the legendary musician, recently announced that this revolutionary musical endeavor would result in a new Beatles recording, slated for release later this year.
The intricate process involved extracting Lennon’s vocals from an old demo using innovative AI technology. In an interview with the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, McCartney expressed his excitement about the project, suggesting it may well be the Beatles’ last record, finalizing a song that had been incomplete for decades.
Although the song’s title remains a secret, speculation is rife that it could be “Now and Then,” a 1978 composition by Lennon. This particular track had been a part of a collection of cassettes, poignantly labeled “For Paul,” created by Lennon shortly before his tragic death in 1980. Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, subsequently gifted these tapes to McCartney.
The AI technology leveraged to make this feat possible was initially used in Peter Jackson’s documentary, “Get Back.” Emile de la Rey, the dialogue editor, developed a unique AI model to identify and separate the Beatles’ voices from background noise. This process not only allowed the creation of new surround-sound mixes for the Beatles’ iconic “Revolver” album but also facilitated McCartney’s “duet” with Lennon during his recent tours.
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Lennon’s original recording of “Now and Then” had been captured on a boombox while he was playing the piano in his New York apartment. Given the low-quality cassette recording, it was no mean feat to extract Lennon’s voice, isolate it from other elements, and then reconstruct it. McCartney elaborated on the process, explaining that the AI model was trained to recognize Lennon’s voice and differentiate it from other sounds, like guitars. The result of this intricate process was a clear and pure rendition of Lennon’s vocals that could be seamlessly mixed into the song’s final version. The result is a striking collaboration between Lennon and McCartney, resurrected through cutting-edge AI techniques.
The song had been considered for the Beatles reunion during the production of the Anthology series in 1995. However, due to technical issues and George Harrison’s dismissive attitude toward the song, the effort was abandoned. The development of AI technology has now given McCartney the chance to fulfill his long-held desire to complete the song, breathing new life into a piece of Beatles history.
The news arrives amid ongoing debates concerning AI-generated music, with McCartney himself acknowledging the potential issues and implications it might carry. But whether one views it with apprehension or excitement, one thing is clear: AI represents a promising frontier in music. By facilitating a posthumous collaboration between Lennon and McCartney, it has already demonstrated its unprecedented potential to revolutionize the industry.
This news was based on information from the website ‘BusinessToday’.
