Paul McCartney responds to claims that new Beatles song will be “artificially created”
The Beatles vocalist and bassist says AI has only been used to “clean up existing recordings”.
Image: Keystone Features/Getty Images
Paul McCartney has responded to “confusion and speculation” about the forthcoming “final Beatles record”, which uses AI to strip John Lennon’s vocals from old audio.
In a new statement on social media, the Beatles bassist and vocalist says AI has not been used to “artificially” create any music.
“[It’s] been great to see such an exciting response to our forthcoming Beatles project. No one is more excited than us to be sharing something with you later in the year,” writes McCartney on Instagram Stories.
“We’ve seen some confusion and speculation about it,” he continues. “Seems to be a lot of guess work out there. Can’t say too much at this stage but to be clear, nothing has been artificially or synthetically created. It’s all real and we all play on it. We cleaned up some existing recordings – a process which has gone on for years”
“We hope you love it as much as we do. More news in due course.”
As there has been a rise in people using AI to create songs out of thin air, with the technology often using existing artists’ vocals as a template, it’s unsurprising that such speculation regarding the new Beatles track exists. Earlier this year, Grimes unveiled a new AI software, Grimes AI, which allows users to mimic her voice in songs of their own.
However, McCartney has made it very clear that all the AI has done is allowed John Lennon’s vocals to come back to life.
The possibility of this was discovered during Peter Jackson’s Get Back documentary, where the dialogue editor trained the computer to recognise the Beatles’ voices, and separate them from background noises.
