“It’s kind of scary but exciting, because it’s the future.”
Paul McCartney has revealed that a new Beatles song is on the way and it’s all thanks to Artificial Intelligence.
The 80-year-old told BBC Radio 4 that AI technology has been used to pull John Lennon’s vocals from a demo for a song on a now-completed record, which is due to be released this year.
“When we came to make what will be the last Beatles record, it was a demo that John had that we worked on,” McCartney told presenter Martha Kearney.
“We were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI so that then we could mix the record as you would normally do — it gives you some sort of leeway. So there’s a good side to it and then a scary side and we’ll just have to see where that leads.”
According to the BBC, while McCartney didn’t name the song, it’s likely to be the John Lennon demo called Now And Then, which the late Beatle had written shortly before his death.
The news outlet said that the Beatles bassist had received the demo from Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono in 1994.
“When we came to make what will be the last Beatles record… We were able to get John’s voice through AI.”
Ahead of his exhibition at @NPGLondon of Beatles photos, Sir Paul McCartney spoke to @Marthakearney and revealed that a new record will be released this year.#R4Today
— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) June 13, 2023
The future of AI and music
Artificial Intelligence has been a big talking point in music over the last while. Just a few months ago David Guetta used artificial intelligence to perfectly replicate Eminem’s voice for a song. A lot was discussed over the implications of the technology after a band created a “lost” Oasis album.
McCartney cited Peter Jackson’s documentary, The Beatles: Get Back, which released last year, as what lit the fuse for him to explore the possibilities of AI.
“[Jackson] was able to extricate John’s voice from a ropey little bit of cassette — it had John’s voice and a piano,” he said. “He could separate them with AI, they could tell the machine ‘that’s a voice, this is a guitar, lose the guitar’ and he did that. So it has great uses.”
However, McCartney also shared that while it has its uses, he’s wary of the expanding technology.
“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.”
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