Paul McCartney announced on BBC’s“Best of Today”radio show that he relied on artificial intelligence to create “what will be the last Beatles record.” The track, set to debut later this year, features vocals from McCartney and the late John Lennon, who died in 1980.
“It was a demo that John had that we worked on, and we just finished it up, it’ll be released this year,” McCartney said. “We were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI, so then we could mix the record as you would normally do. It gives you some sort of leeway, so there’s a good side to it, and then a scary side, and we’ll just have to see where that leads.”
McCartney called AI “a very interesting thing,” adding, “It’s something we’re all sort of tackling at the moment and trying to deal with. What it means? I don’t hear that much because I’m not on the internet that much, but people will say to me, ‘Oh, there’s a track where John is singing one of my songs.’ And it isn’t. It’s just AI All of that is kind of scary, but exciting because it’s the future.”
Artificial intelligence has become one of the most divisive topics in the music industry as of late, as the technology has been used to create and sell songs featuring artists that have not consented to such a release. An AI-generated fake collaboration between Drake and the Weeknd titled “Heart on My Sleeve” went viral in April but set off alarm bells in the industry. The song was racking up enough listens and views that it appeared to be on track to become a charting song until it was pulled off Tidal, Apple, Spotify and other streaming platforms.
Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music company, issued a statement in April asking major streaming services likeSpotifyand Apple Musicto block AI companies from using its music to “train” their technology.
“We have a moral and commercial responsibility to our artists to work to prevent the unauthorized use of their music and to stop platforms from ingesting content that violates the rights of artists and other creators,” the company said in a statement. “We expect our platform partners will want to prevent their services from being used in ways that harm artists.”
