"Beatles Make History: AI Completes Lennon's Final Song"

The Beatles have made history by winning the first Grammy Award for a song augmented by artificial intelligence. The band's previously unreleased track, "Now and Then," took home the Grammy for Best Rock Performance at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards on Sunday night.

The song, which was first recorded by Beatles singer John Lennon in 1978, was completed decades later with the help of AI. After Lennon's assassination in 1980, his surviving bandmates struggled to isolate and tweak his vocals on the initial recordings. However, AI technology provided a solution, allowing The Beatles to clean up Lennon's tracks and deliver a high-quality final product. The single was finally released in November 2023, marketed as The Beatles' final song.

It's important to note that the AI technology used to finish "Now and Then" was not the type that creates totally synthetic recordings mimicking an artist's voice and style. The Beatles have insisted that AI only helped sharpen the sound quality on Lennon's pre-existing solo recordings.

The embrace of "Now and Then" by the Recording Academy marks a significant milestone in the entertainment industry, where any association with the term "AI" can often spark controversy. Two films nominated for Best Picture Oscars this year, "The Brutalist" and "Emilia Perez," faced backlash for using AI to augment actors' foreign language skills and vocal ranges, respectively.

"Now and Then" may have been the perfect vehicle for AI innovation, given its connection to one of the most established and beloved bands of all time, and the irresistible narrative tied to its creation—allowing The Beatles to "reassemble" one last time despite the passing of two members.

However, it remains to be seen whether the generosity afforded "Now and Then" will extend to more experimental offerings. Around the same time as the song's release, an anonymous music producer released a smash-hit, completely AI-generated song that imagined a lively collaboration between Drake and The Weeknd. The Recording Academy's CEO initially backed the song, "Heart On My Sleeve," clarifying it was "absolutely eligible" for Grammy consideration. However, after furious backlash from record labels claiming copyright infringement, the Academy reversed its opinion, locking the song and its creator out of Grammy eligibility.