Nearly half a century after breaking up, The Beatles are once again in the Grammy spotlight. Their AI-assisted track, "Now and Then," has earned two nominations for the 2025 Grammy Awards: Record of the Year and Best Rock Performance.
Why it matters: "Now and Then" is the first AI-assisted track to be nominated for a Grammy. The song's completion in 2023 used machine learning to isolate John Lennon's vocals from a low-quality demo recorded in the late 1970s. This groundbreaking use of AI to restore an unfinished recording has brought The Beatles back into contemporary music's most competitive arena.
The details:
- "Now and Then" was originally a demo recorded by John Lennon and given to his bandmates in the 1990s. Back then, technology couldn’t cleanly separate Lennon’s vocals from his piano.
- In 2021, filmmaker Peter Jackson and his team used advanced AI tools to successfully extract the vocals, allowing Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr to complete the song.
- AI was crucial in cleaning up the audio, using a method called “stem separation” to isolate Lennon's voice and remove background noise—a technique also applied to remaster earlier Beatles albums.
The big picture: The nominations reflect a shift in the music industry, as AI becomes an integral tool for creative production. While the Recording Academy prohibits fully AI-generated works, it allows songs containing AI elements if human creators remain central to their production.
Between the lines: The Grammys have seen debates over AI's role in music, highlighted last year when the AI-driven song “Heart on My Sleeve” stirred controversy over deepfakes and intellectual property. Unlike that instance, The Beatles' approach here emphasizes restoration over replication—a respectful nod to the past, rather than a provocative leap into the future.
What's next: The 2025 Grammy Awards will take place on February 2nd. "Now and Then" will compete with some of today's most notable artists—Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and Billie Eilish, among others. Despite being a historic contender, it faces an uphill battle; with only 78 million streams, it’s one of the less-streamed songs in the Record of the Year category.