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AI (artificial intelligence) technology has crept into the music industry. While auto-tune can enhance someone’s voice, AI can recreate it entirely. Paul McCartney recently stirred up some controversy when he announced that a new Beatles song would be released using AI technology to finish John Lennon’s vocals. However, Lennon’s second son, Sean, recently cleared up some questions by saying that the AI will not recreate his father’s voice but will polish it to perfection. 

Sean Lennon says the AI will clean up John Lennon’s vocals on the new Beatles song

Paul McCartney made headlines in June 2023 when he announced that a new song by The Beatles would be released later in the year with the help of AI. In an interview with BBC Radio 4, McCartney said the technology was utilized earlier in Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back documentary. The tech processes out the background noise and gets the best version of Lennon’s voice. 

“He [Jackson] was able to extricate John’s voice from a ropey little bit of cassette,” the “Let it Be” singer said. “We had John’s voice and a piano, and he could separate them with AI. They tell the machine, ‘That’s the voice. This is a guitar. Lose the guitar’. So when we came to make what will be the last Beatles’ record, it was a demo that John had [and] we were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI. Then we can mix the record, as you would normally do. So it gives you some sort of leeway.”

However, this caused concern and confusion among many fans. AI has already been utilized to recreate The Beatles’ voices, as a video of the band covering The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” recently went viral. Many do not want to see Lennon’s voice recreated as it feels exploitative and could sound eerie. 

Recently, Sean Lennon took to Twitter to clear up fans’ concerns about the new Beatles song. He said the AI technology will not be used to recreate his voice but to clean up what’s already there. 

“That is not happening. All we did was clean the noise from the vocal track,” Sean wrote. “People are completely misunderstanding what occurred. There have always been ways of ‘de-noising’ tracks but AI just does it better because it learns what the vocal is and is able to very precisely remove everything that is not the vocal.”

Sean also responded to another user, saying, “The track turned out beautifully and I think everyone will be very happy.”

‘Now and Then’ was almost released with ‘Anthology’

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The AI Beatles song being released is “Now and Then,” a Lennon composition he never finished before his 1980 assassination. The track was considered as a possible third single for The Beatles Anthology, alongside “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love.” However, the remaining Beatles (George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr) abandoned the song as they didn’t love it, and it would have taken too much work to get it to a releasable quality. 

Jeff Lynne, who co-produced the two singles with The Beatles, said there wasn’t enough of the song to save.

“It was one day – one afternoon, really – messing with it,” Lynne shared. “The song had a chorus but is almost totally lacking in verses. We did the backing track, a rough go that we really didn’t finish.”

Thanks to AI, “Now and Then” is finished and will be released sometime in 2023. It will most likely be the final new Beatles song ever. 

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