The Beatles just made history again. At the 2025 Grammys on Sunday (Feb. 2), they won Best Rock Performance for Now and Then, making it the first-ever AI-assisted song to win a Grammy.
Originally a John Lennon demo from the 1970s, the track was finally completed with contributions from Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Just to clarify, Now and Then isn’t some AI-generated song, and nobody used artificial intelligence to recreate Lennon’s voice just to make another award-winning Beatles track.
AI technology, which wasn’t available back in the 1990s when they worked on Real Love and Free as a Bird, helped clean up Lennon’s vocals, allowing the song to come to life. With the help of friends like director Peter Jackson and his sound team, McCartney and Starr were able to complete the song in 2021.
The Beatles have won a GRAMMY Award for “Best Rock Performance” for their song “Now and Then”pic.twitter.com/W6fYGSZjbL
— The Beatles Earth (@BeatlesEarth) February 3, 2025
Released in November 2023, Now and Then was eligible for this year’s Grammys, and its win cements The Beatles’ legacy as innovators across generations. Lennon’s son, Sean, accepted the award on behalf of the group, stating: “Play The Beatles’ music to your kids… The world can’t afford to forget them.”
How AI helped make Beatles track ‘Now and Then’ a reality
At the time of its release, McCartney said: “We’ve seen some confusion and speculation about it.
“To be clear, nothing has been artificially or synthetically created. It’s all real and we all play on it. We cleaned up some existing recordings — a process which has gone on for years. We hope you love it as much as we do.”
Been great to see such an exciting response to our forthcoming Beatles project. No one is more excited than us to be sharing something with you later in the year.
We’ve seen some confusion and speculation about it. Seems to be a lot of guess work out there. Can’t say too much…
— Paul McCartney (@PaulMcCartney) June 22, 2023
Producers used a machine-learning-powered audio tool to separate John Lennon’s vocals from the piano, but nothing was actually generated by AI. The tool helped isolate the original tracks, allowing the team, along with McCartney and Starr, to build on them, record new parts, mix, and bring the song to life.
The music video, however, takes things a step further. Directed by Jackson (who also worked on Now and Then and the 2021 Get Back documentary), the video blends archival footage of Lennon and Harrison with present-day clips of McCartney and Starr, creating a surreal and emotional reunion of The Beatles across time.
Featured image: The Beatles / YouTube