Last year the remaining Beatles – Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Ringo Starr – along with Files Martin released what was billed the final single from the Fab Four titled “Now and Then”.
The song was reconstructed from a demo cassette recorded by John Lennon who was murdered in 1980. Harrison died in 2001 as a result of cancer.
The song went on to be nominated for Grammy and Brit Awards; but it also stirred up a great deal of controversy over whether the song was make via Artificial Intelligence.
Martin noted, “AI is not creating John’s voice. John’s voice existed on that cassette and we made the song around him.”
He added, “I think there is this supposition that we used AI to recreate something, or to perhaps enhance John Lennon’s voice. This simply wasn’t the case. All we did was clean a cassette recording he had made all those years ago.”
In actuality, it was machine learning technology that allowed them to separate the instruments, voices, and dialog on the original recording.
Lennon recorded the tape in 1977 in his New York City apartment. After his death, Sir Paul was given two cassette tapes, one of which included an unfinished version of “Now and Then”.
Electric Light Orchestra’s Jeff Lynne worked with McCartney, Starr, and Harrison in the 90’s but it was never completed due to a lack of technology at the time that would allow them to enhance the poor quality of the tape. The Machine Learning Technology was the technology needed to bring the tape to record worthy quality.
Giles Martin noted, “there’s always a challenge in mixing anything and getting everyone to settle down. But as this was all the Beatles playing, they obviously compliment each other beautifully in what they do. There wasn’t too much of a challenge.”
“Now and Then” was completed using the retrieved John Lennon, the guitar parts George Harrison recorded during the 90’s sessions, and some new musical contributions from Sirs Paul and Ringo. New lyrics were also written to add to the song.
Martin added, “it was purely Paul’s decision to work on this record, and he led that decision based on having heard the work that we’ve done with Peter Jackson.”
The Machine Learning Technology used for “Now and Then” is similar to the “stem separation technology used in modern digital recording software.
One of the big talking points during the recent Hollywood Writer’s Strike was the AI use of work and images. Giles Martin noted that in using any form of AI must first, ”it’s fundamental that if any technology is used in a recording, it should be done with the artist’s approval. The idea that anyone could generate an imitation or deepfake of an artist without their permission, or even create a deepfake recording of anything is, I think, very dangerous. It’s really important that the artist owns their own voice, when it comes to using this technology.”
The Recording Academy has stated that any for of music entered for award nominations CANNOT be an AI created work.
During The Beatles hey-day at Abbey Road, recording music was still in its developing stages. Sir George Martin and the lads were pioneers when it came to using and embracing the technology that was available. It is no surprise that they would have done the same when creating “Now and Then”.