Why AI and The Beatles is Perfect
Good Thursday folks. Not much of an intro from me today. I left it all in the Beatles story. Enjoy.
"Listen to the 'final' Beatles track, made with machine learning and archival recordings"
"The Beatles New Song 'Now and Then': Single Review"
"The Beatles’ final song is now streaming thanks to AI - The Verge"
The Beatles have released what the surviving members are promoting as the group's final single. The Beatles have done "final songs" a lot in their career but this one really feels like it.
Especially since Paul and Ringo, the two living members are older than 80.
In 1995, when George Harrison was still alive, the Beatles took recordings from late member John Lennon and created two new songs. They tried creating a third, but electrical line noise and an imbalance between piano and vocals on John's recording was too much, so they abandoned it. Before they gave up though, George Harrison did record a guitar track for it.
Almost 30 years later, enter Peter Jackson, using machine learning to eliminate noise from recordings of Beatles video in order to create the "Get Back" documentary. That was so impressive that Paula nd Ringo decided to use that software to separate John Lennon's vocals and take one more crack at making a new track.
The rhythm Guitar from George was added to that. McCartney did the Harrison-sounding solo. Then they added bass from Paul and drums from Ringo and production from George Martin’s son.
Is this now finally the last song from the Beatles? Or you know, with AI getting better are we going to see all four revived as a virtual act by their estate after they're all gone. And should we? In fact should we even do this song?
I've been fascinated by the Beatles most of my life. Friends of mine used to chant "Squash the Beatles" when they came over to play fantasy baseball on my Commodore 64, because they felt perhaps I played them too much. But I was drawn to why they ended. Why did so much success, and so much camaraderie come to en end.
Let me start with this song, Now And Then. It's perfect. It is not the best Beatles song. It may not even be the best last Beatles song. The End was technically the last track released by all four living members. It was the final song on Abbey Road which was the final album recorded. The Long and Winding Road hit number 1 on June 13th and stayed there for two weeks, leaving the slot one week before I was born. And then there's the aforementioned "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love" released in 1995 on Anthology.
So of course my combined fascination with the Beatles ending and the progress of machine learning had me riveted this morning when "Now and Then" dropped.
It's perfect. It doesn't sound "generated." This is machine learning used at its best, as a tool. It was used to pull out John's vocals and make them sound natural. The production honored George's work and style. And the tone feels like the Beatles. More importantly it feels to me like the Beatles saying goodbye. Yeah I teared up a little, so what?
Someday someone will try to revive them virtually. And I have no problem with that. I like people trying things. But it will not be the Beatles. And that's fine too. With this song the Beatles have truly bowed out. It's a testament to them that it lasted beyond two member's deaths and into the other two members eighth decade. Thank you, gentlemen.
OK enough sappy Beatles talk. Let's pick on Meta shall we!
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Tom Merritt Tech Newsletter to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.