Surprise: in November 2023, an unreleased Beatles song was released. "Now And Then". A song with a somewhat complicated history: in the 90s, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison got together to finalize new songs for the group, whose story ended in 1970 (John Lennon, the fourth member of the group, was assassinated in 1980).
They got their hands on several demos, reworked and remixed, which can be heard on Anthology compilations: "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love". However, there is a third song, "Now And Then", which could not be recovered. John Lennon had recorded this demo on the same track; The technologies of the time did not allow the voice and piano to be properly separated.
In 2022, artificial intelligence came along and thanks to technology developed by Peter Jackson, director of a long documentary on the Beatles, the separation was able to be done correctly. It is not generative AI (as in ChatGPT), but machine learning. It is indeed John Lennon's voice that we hear, not a synthetic reproduction.
Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr returned to the studio to record their parts (bass and drums), with a guitar recorded by George Harrison in 1995. In the end, a real "Frankenstein" piece! But the result is there:
"Now And Then" allows the Beatles to win a new Grammy Award, their 14th during an absolutely exceptional career. The first dates back to 1964.
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