For the first time in 54 years, The Beatles have returned to the top of the UK charts with “Now and Then,” a song that uses artificial intelligence to reunite the legendary British band, it was announced on Sunday.
The song released on Thursday, recorded by John Lennon and completed posthumously by the group’s other members, is currently outperforming its rivals, according to the official charts.
Based on this trend, it may be on its way to occupying first place in the next weekly chart, which will be published next Friday, dethroning American star Taylor Swift.
This is the Liverpool band’s eighteenth song to reach the top of the chart. The first was “From Me to You”, in 1963, and the previous was “The Ballad of John and Yoko”, in 1969, shortly before the band split in April 1970.
McCartney told the BBC that the new song, which Lennon and George Harrison worked on in the 1970s, and which was completed by Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr last year, was worked on using artificial intelligence to remove John Lennon’s voice from the original “demo” recording. .
The musician told the British station: “There was John’s voice, crystal clear. It is very influential,” highlighting that the final version brings together all the elements of the band.
“Now and Then” will also be part of the reissue of “The Red Album” and “The Blue Album,” compilations of Beatles songs first released in 1973, covering the years 1962-1966 and 1967-1970, respectively.
Recently, artificial intelligence technology made it possible to isolate Lennon’s voice and mix it with recordings of other singers, including George Harrison before his death in 2001.
The song was completed and released by the two remaining members, Paul McCartney, 81, and Ringo Starr, 83.
On October 26, Paul McCartney announced the release of the new single “Now and Then” on November 2, which will also be part of the reissue of the “Red Album” and “Blue Album”, compilations of songs the Beatles first released in 1973, for the years 1962. -1966 AD and 1967-1970 AD, respectively.
In the statement about the release of “Now and Then” it can be said that it is “a real Beatles recording”.
According to McCartney, “The sound [original da ‘demo’] “It was so bad” that everyone abandoned its use for decades.
For Ringo Starr, the band’s other survivor, the release of “Now and Then” was the closest thing to getting… [Lennon] Return to the recording room.
“Now and Then” was written by John Lennon after the Beatles split in 1970.
After the musician’s death, who was murdered in New York in December 1980, his widow, Yoko Ono, gave McCartney a cassette tape on which he wrote “For Paul.” This “demo”, in addition to “Now andthen”, also contains the first versions of “Free As A Bird” and “Real Sees it”, which were published as a single and on the 1995 album “Anthology”.
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