Nov 8, 2023 01:41 AM
https://www.npr.org/sections/world-cafe/...w-and-then
EXCERPTS: The record has a long history, which includes a demo recorded by Lennon in the late '70s in his residence at The Dakota in New York.
As producer Giles Martin explains, a big part of why "Now And Then" has been in production limbo for so long is due to the poor quality of the cassette tape.
"The very original recording is just John playing the piano with TV in the background," Martin tells World Cafe. "That's part of this technology — we could now extract John from the piano and from the television."
[...] the machine learning technology allowed them to isolate Lennon's vocals in a way that previously wasn't possible.
[...] "Essentially, what the machine learning does is it recognizes someone's voice. So if you and I have a conversation and we're in a crowded room and there's a piano playing in the background, we can teach the AI what the sound of your voice, the sound of my voice, and it can extract those voices," Martin said.
[...] "You have to have the raw signal to be able to do it," Martin said. "We then put everything that we've separated back together... (MORE - missing details)
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"Now and Then" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles. It was released on 2 November 2023. Dubbed "the last Beatles song", it appeared on a double A-side single, paired with a new stereo remix of the band's first single, "Love Me Do" (1962), with the two serving as "bookends" to the band's history.
"Now and Then" is a psychedelic soft rock ballad that John Lennon wrote and recorded in 1977 as a five-minute solo piano home demo, but left unfinished. After Lennon's death in 1980, the song was considered as the third Beatles reunion single for their 1995–1996 retrospective project The Beatles Anthology, following "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love", both based on Lennon's demos. Instead, it was shelved for nearly three decades, until it was completed by the surviving bandmates Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, including overdubs and guitar tracks by George Harrison (who died in 2001) from the abandoned 1995 sessions.
The final version features additional lyrics by McCartney, and Lennon's voice extracted from the demo using the AI-backed audio restoration technology commissioned by Peter Jackson for his 2021 documentary "The Beatles: Get Back." Jackson also directed the music video for "Now and Then". The song received acclaim from critics, who felt it was a worthy finale for the Beatles.
It reached the number one position in the most listened songs on Spotify in the UK and number 15 globally. It also reached number one on iTunes in the global top as well as in the United States and United Kingdom.
The Beatles - "Now And Then"
EXCERPTS: The record has a long history, which includes a demo recorded by Lennon in the late '70s in his residence at The Dakota in New York.
As producer Giles Martin explains, a big part of why "Now And Then" has been in production limbo for so long is due to the poor quality of the cassette tape.
"The very original recording is just John playing the piano with TV in the background," Martin tells World Cafe. "That's part of this technology — we could now extract John from the piano and from the television."
[...] the machine learning technology allowed them to isolate Lennon's vocals in a way that previously wasn't possible.
[...] "Essentially, what the machine learning does is it recognizes someone's voice. So if you and I have a conversation and we're in a crowded room and there's a piano playing in the background, we can teach the AI what the sound of your voice, the sound of my voice, and it can extract those voices," Martin said.
[...] "You have to have the raw signal to be able to do it," Martin said. "We then put everything that we've separated back together... (MORE - missing details)
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Now and Then" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles. It was released on 2 November 2023. Dubbed "the last Beatles song", it appeared on a double A-side single, paired with a new stereo remix of the band's first single, "Love Me Do" (1962), with the two serving as "bookends" to the band's history.
"Now and Then" is a psychedelic soft rock ballad that John Lennon wrote and recorded in 1977 as a five-minute solo piano home demo, but left unfinished. After Lennon's death in 1980, the song was considered as the third Beatles reunion single for their 1995–1996 retrospective project The Beatles Anthology, following "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love", both based on Lennon's demos. Instead, it was shelved for nearly three decades, until it was completed by the surviving bandmates Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, including overdubs and guitar tracks by George Harrison (who died in 2001) from the abandoned 1995 sessions.
The final version features additional lyrics by McCartney, and Lennon's voice extracted from the demo using the AI-backed audio restoration technology commissioned by Peter Jackson for his 2021 documentary "The Beatles: Get Back." Jackson also directed the music video for "Now and Then". The song received acclaim from critics, who felt it was a worthy finale for the Beatles.
It reached the number one position in the most listened songs on Spotify in the UK and number 15 globally. It also reached number one on iTunes in the global top as well as in the United States and United Kingdom.
The Beatles - "Now And Then"