Legendary musician Paul McCartney has revealed that he will release a new Beatles song later this year, which was created using AI. The track features a previously unreleased John Lennon vocal, pulled from a demo recording, and was restored using a custom AI system to separate the members’ vocals from background noise, enabling high-quality reproduction. The inspiration for the song came from Peter Jackson’s documentary ‘Get Back.’ The AI-powered track separation and cleanup process has restored the vocals to a place where they can be mixed cleanly and sound as if they were recorded fresh for the purpose.
The use of AI in music generation has been a controversial topic, with some artists opposing even the slightest hint of AI-generated music while others have embraced it completely. McCartney seems to be on the ‘pro’ side, albeit partly, saying that it’s scary but exciting because it’s the future when shown versions of Lennon singing his songs generated by AI.
This is not the first attempt to record the track; in fact, there was an earlier attempt in 1995 with the surviving Beatles, but George Harrison objected midway through the process because of the poor quality of the Lennon track. However, with AI-generated tracks like this one, McCartney opened up new possibilities in the music industry by allowing musicians to restore old takes, polishing them into tracks that sound like they were recorded today.
It’s fascinating how AI-generated music is changing the music industry. It allows musicians to restore old material and bring it to a whole new level of quality. While there’s a debate on whether AI-generated music is a viable source of art, there’s no denying that it’s a fantastic tool for music restoration. McCartney’s new track, which features a much-loved Beatles member, is sure to be a hit with fans, and it is exciting to see the future possibilities of AI-generated music.