On a recent BBC Radio 4 appearance, Paul McCartney revealed he is releasing a new Beatles song later this year. How is this possible? The power of AI.
McCartney teamed up with famous director and previous collaborator Peter Jackson in order to tackle the monumental task.
The song itself was originally on a demo tape John Lennon recorded himself shortly before his 1980 murder. In the early 90s, Lennon’s wife, famous artist Yoko Ono, gave McCartney said demo tape which was labeled “For Paul.” The surviving Beatles: McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr attempted to rerecord the song using Lennon’s pre-taped vocals, but the quality was too low at the time.
Years later, using artificial intelligence, McCartney tried again.
“We just finished it up, and it’ll be released this year. [Peter Jackson] was able to extricate John’s voice from a ropey little bit of cassette,” McCartney told BBC Radio 4. “We had John’s voice and a piano and he could separate them with AI. They tell the machine, ‘That’s the voice. This is a guitar. Lose the guitar.'”
Artificial Beatles?
This type of AI utilization is more grounded than the kind that McCartney voiced his concerns over:
“I’m not on the internet that much, (but) people will say to me, ‘Oh, yeah, there’s a track where John’s singing one of my songs,’ and it’s just AI, you know? It’s kind of scary but exciting because it’s the future. We’ll just have to see where that leads.”
While the song uses vocals John Lennon himself recorded and intended for Paul McCartney to have, social media is divided over the news. The prospect of a new Beatles song after several decades is exciting news for some. Others believe this is disrespectful to Lennon’s legacy, and the Beatles’ legacy as a whole.
Whatever you choose to believe, the song is coming out regardless. Who knows, a brand new song could result in another wave of Beatlemania taking over the world once more.
