This afternoon, what's being billed as 'the final song' from The Beatles is released, followed by the video directed by Peter 'Get Back' Jackson.
Now and Then originates from a demo tape John Lennon recorded in 1978. Several years after Lennon's murder, Yoko Ono gave the tape to Paul McCartney and the surviving Beatles worked with ELO's Jeff Lynne to work these demos into new Beatles songs for their Anthology release in 1995. Alongside Now and Then were Free As A Bird and Real Love. Due to the quality of the recording and an overloud, distorted piano track on Now and Then, it was decided that only Free As A Bird and Real Love could be salvaged with Lennon's vocals. Both tracks were released with the Anthology, I quite like them both, but you can certainly hear that the quality of the vocal recording (not the singing itself) isn't great.
When Peter Jackson made Get Back a couple of years ago, it was created from the original footage recorded by Michael Lindsay-Hogg that was never officially released - certainly not in its entirety. When Jackson began restoring the footage, like had for They Shall Never Grow Old, they developed a machine-learning “de-mixing” software that isolated the voices in the messy audio recording and allowed us to hear what The Beatles were saying. It is this same technique that was used to clean up Lennon's vocal on Now and Then. With this new, clean "AI" vocal, McCartney picked up where he, Harrison, Ringo and Lynne left off in 1995 and completed the recording - bringing in orchestration, re-recording Lenon's distorted piano, using Harrison's guitar from '95, getting Ringo to lay down a new drum track and even sampling older Beatles' backing vocals.
We will hear the results today and see what Jackson has done with even more new and restored, never-seen-before footage from across their careers.
I am excited about this. I don't think its ghoulish, I think the use of AI is massively over-reported and I'm not expecting anything more than a worked-up demo, not a lost masterpiece. I'm particularly interested in seeing it with Jackson's video as it feels like this really is the end of the story in so far as McCartney and Ringo are still here. I've no doubt they'll continue to remaster, re-release and repackage things long after they are dead, but this feels like a passion project of McCartney's and I'm ready for it.
Thoughts?
Now and Then originates from a demo tape John Lennon recorded in 1978. Several years after Lennon's murder, Yoko Ono gave the tape to Paul McCartney and the surviving Beatles worked with ELO's Jeff Lynne to work these demos into new Beatles songs for their Anthology release in 1995. Alongside Now and Then were Free As A Bird and Real Love. Due to the quality of the recording and an overloud, distorted piano track on Now and Then, it was decided that only Free As A Bird and Real Love could be salvaged with Lennon's vocals. Both tracks were released with the Anthology, I quite like them both, but you can certainly hear that the quality of the vocal recording (not the singing itself) isn't great.
When Peter Jackson made Get Back a couple of years ago, it was created from the original footage recorded by Michael Lindsay-Hogg that was never officially released - certainly not in its entirety. When Jackson began restoring the footage, like had for They Shall Never Grow Old, they developed a machine-learning “de-mixing” software that isolated the voices in the messy audio recording and allowed us to hear what The Beatles were saying. It is this same technique that was used to clean up Lennon's vocal on Now and Then. With this new, clean "AI" vocal, McCartney picked up where he, Harrison, Ringo and Lynne left off in 1995 and completed the recording - bringing in orchestration, re-recording Lenon's distorted piano, using Harrison's guitar from '95, getting Ringo to lay down a new drum track and even sampling older Beatles' backing vocals.
We will hear the results today and see what Jackson has done with even more new and restored, never-seen-before footage from across their careers.
I am excited about this. I don't think its ghoulish, I think the use of AI is massively over-reported and I'm not expecting anything more than a worked-up demo, not a lost masterpiece. I'm particularly interested in seeing it with Jackson's video as it feels like this really is the end of the story in so far as McCartney and Ringo are still here. I've no doubt they'll continue to remaster, re-release and repackage things long after they are dead, but this feels like a passion project of McCartney's and I'm ready for it.
Thoughts?
