For the first time in 54 years, The Beatles returned to the top of the UK charts with “Now and Then”, a track that uses artificial intelligence to reunite the legendary British group, announced this Sunday.
Released on Thursday, the track, recorded by John Lennon and completed after his death by the other band members, is currently outperforming its competitors, according to the official charts.
Given this trend, he could take the top spot in the next weekly chart released next Friday, dethroning American superstar Taylor Swift.
It is the Liverpool band’s 18th single 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.
The new song, which Lennon and George Harrison worked on in the 1970s and which Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr completed last year, was developed using artificial intelligence to remove John Lennon’s voice from the original “demo tape”, McCartney told the BBC. .
“It was John’s crystal clear voice. It’s very touching,” the musician told a British radio station, emphasizing that the final release unites all the elements of the group.
“Now and Then” will also be part of the re-release of the “Red Album” and “Blue Album”, compilations of The Beatles’ hits first released in 1973 and covering the years 1962-1966 and 1967-1970, respectively.
Artificial intelligence technology has recently 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 surviving members, Paul McCartney, 81, and Ringo Starr, 83.
On October 26, Paul McCartney announced the release of a new song, “Now and Then”, on November 2, which will also be part of the reissue of the Red Album and Blue Album, collections of The Beatles’ hits released by The Beatles Label. the first time in 1973, referring to the years 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 respectively.
The release statement for “Now and Then” states that it is “a real Beatles recording.”
According to McCartney, “the sound [original da ‘demo’] it was so bad” that everyone stopped using it for decades.
For Ringo Starr, another survivor of the group, the “Now and then” montage “was the closest I’ve ever come to [Lennon] back to the recording room.
“Now and Then” was written by John Lennon after the Beatles broke up in 1970.
After the musician’s death, murdered in New York in December 1980, his widow Yoko Ono gave McCartney a cassette tape with the inscription “For Paul.” This “demo”, in addition to “Now and then”, also contained the first versions of “Free As A Bird” and “Real Sees it”, which were released as a single and included on the 1995 Anthology album.