The Beatles made history at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night as their AI-assisted track “Now and Then” won the award for Best Rock Performance, marking the first time a song utilizing artificial intelligence has received the honor.
Contrary to speculation, Paul McCartney did not use AI to generate a simulated John Lennon voice. Instead, he employed advanced noise reduction technology to enhance a decades-old, low-quality piano demo recorded by his late bandmate.
This technology, similar to that used by video call platforms like Zoom, FaceTime, and Google Meet to reduce background noise, helped isolate and clarify Lennon’s vocals.
The surviving Beatles initially attempted to restore Lennon’s demo in the 1990s, but the technology at the time was insufficient to clean up the muffled recording.
However, in 2022, after seeing how the filmmakers of the Beatles documentary “Get Back” had used new audio isolation techniques to enhance old recordings, they decided to revisit “Now and Then.”
