Paul McCartney reveals AI has been used to create ‘the final Beatles report’ – that includes John Lennon’s vocals

Artificial intelligence has been used to create “the last Beatles record”, set to be launched later this yr, Sir Paul McCartney has revealed.

The Beatles star, 80, stated his late bandmate John Lennon‘s vocals from an outdated demo had been extricated and made “pure” due to the expertise.

It took place throughout the making of the documentary series The Beatles: Get Back, which was launched in 2021, directed by Lord Of The Rings filmmaker Peter Jackson.

Sir Paul made the feedback on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme after being requested for his ideas on synthetic intelligence (AI).

“When Peter Jackson did the film Get Back, where it was us making the Let It Be album, he was able to extricate John’s voice from a ropey little bit of cassette and a piano,” he stated. “He might separate them with AI. They inform the machine: ‘That’s a voice, it is a guitar – lose the guitar’.

“So when we came to make what will be the last Beatles record, it was a demo that John had that we worked on and we just finished it up. It will be released this year.

“We had been in a position to take John’s voice and get it pure by way of this AI so then we might combine the report as you’d usually do. It provides you some type of leeway.”

Sir Paul said in recent years he had been told about tracks featuring Lennon “singing considered one of my songs – and it is not, it is simply AI”.

There is a “good facet” to the technology but also a “scary facet”, he said, adding: “We will simply need to see the place that leads.”

Read extra:
Musicians react to AI songs flooding the internet
Rare photos from Cavern Club found
McCartney’s childhood home opened for unsigned artists

This is just not the primary time Sir Paul has embraced AI, having been given the de-aging treatment in the video for his track Find My Way in 2021.

In the Today interview, the singer-songwriter additionally spoke about his forthcoming pictures exhibition, titled Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes Of The Storm, to mark the reopening of the National Portrait Gallery.

‘With The Beatles, you’ve got this overwhelming stuff occurring to you’

The exhibition incorporates beforehand unseen images he took on his Pentax digicam throughout the early days of Beatlemania, together with portraits of Sir Ringo Starr in addition to late bandmates George Harrison and Lennon, and supervisor Brian Epstein.

“It is very poignant, it’s great because, whenever you lose someone, I think your natural thing is ‘Well, we’ve got beautiful memories’, and you hold fast those memories of the good times,” Sir Paul stated.

Click to subscribe to Backstage wherever you get your podcasts

“I don’t tend to dwell on the fact that you’ve lost someone. After a while – it’ll maybe take a year or two – and then you can look back and you just remember where you met them, things you did…

“And when it got here to The Beatles, and you’ve got this overwhelming stuff occurring to you, you knew one another so effectively that you could possibly lean on one another – that is what I see in these footage.”

The exhibition will run from 28 June to 1 October.