The Beatles have scored Grammy nominations for Record of the Year and Best Rock Performance for their song "Now and Then," a 'lost' track recovered and restored using AI. This is the first time a song produced with AI assistance has earned such recognition and could portend plenty of arguments ahead over the role of AI in music production.
"Now and Then" was released last year and garnered plenty of attention not only for being a Beatles song most have not heard but also for its AI-infused production. Rumors swirled that surviving Beatles members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr used generative AI to clone John Lennon's voice for the song. That wasn't true, however. Instead, "stem separation" AI let the producers isolate Lennon's vocals from an existing demo track that was too low-fidelity to be useful for a real track. The AI tools enhanced Lennon's voice by removing background noise and tuning up the voice to make the audio better.
