If you have been browsing the list of nominees for this year's Grammy Awards, you were likely surprised to see The Beatles among the candidates for the award — arguably one of the most famous bands in the world, which split up 50 years ago.
Yes, artificial intelligence played a role here — however, it did not completely generate a new song but merely "enhanced" an old demo recording by John Lennon. Initially, it was attempted to be revived by Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, who reunited to work on new songs in the early 90s. While they successfully completed "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love," the work on "Now and Then" was stalled (at that time, the necessary technology to effectively separate Lennon's piano sounds from his voice did not exist).
A turning point came in the early part of this decade when director Peter Jackson was working on his documentary film "Get Back" for Disney Plus. His team developed a technology that allowed them to take virtually any musical work (even an old demo) and "deconstruct it into various components using machine learning."
McCartney and Starr realized that this was their chance to finalize "Now and Then." Paul recorded the bass music, Ringo added the drums, and producer Giles Martin created the string arrangement "as his father would have done in the old days" (Giles is the son of The Beatles' producer George Martin, who was sometimes referred to as the "fifth Beatle").
Eventually, last year the song "Now and Then" debuted on streaming services (the music video on YouTube alone garnered over 60 million views), and in 2024 it received a Grammy nomination. Now we look forward to the awards ceremony in February, which will reveal whether the song created with the help of AI will take home the coveted trophy.
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