The Beatles Make History with Grammy Win for AI-Assisted Song Now and Then

The Beatles are continuing to make history with a Grammy first happening when they won the Best Rock Performance Award Sunday afternoon (Feb. 2) for their song Now and Then.

The song was the first of its kind AI-assisted song to ever win a Grammy award. The Beatles song Now and Then was released in November 2023, but was just now eligible within the Grammy voting window.

The track was derived from an original John Lennon demo from the '70s that later had the other three Beatles members contributing parts. Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and their engineers reportedly used AI (artificial intelligence) to help clean up Lennon's vocal, a technology unavailable at the time of their Anthology project that yielded Real Love and Free as a Bird in the '90s.

McCartney first spoke of Now and Then in June 2023. Calling it "the final Beatles record" on Radio 4's Today, he explained how AI was used to "extricate" Lennon's voice from the old demo recording in order to complete the song.

Later that same month, McCartney clarified what he meant about AI's role in the process. "We've seen some confusion and speculation about it," he said. "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."

Sean Ono Lennon, the son of John Lennon, was on hand to speak on the band's behalf after previously winning in another category for a separate Beatles-focused project (Best Boxed or Limited Edition Package for Mind Games).

"Since no-one is coming up to take this award, I figured I'd come and sit in. I really didn't expect to be accepting this award on behalf of my father's group, The Beatles," admitted Lennon.

"It's really incredible, if you think about it. The Beatles have done so much incredible work and they're still in the culture and people still listen to the music. As far as I'm concerned, it's the greatest band of all time."

"I think I was supposed to be here with Giles Martin who mixed this with Paul [McCartney] and he did an incredible job. I don't know. I just want to say play The Beatles music to your kids. I feel like the world can't afford to forget about people like The Beatles. We need this music in the world. We need peace and love and we need the magic of the '60s to stay alive."

In addition to The Beatles, the Best Rock Performance category included The Black Keys' Beautiful People (Stay High), Green Day's The American Dream Is Killing Me, IDLES' Gift Horse, Pearl Jam's Dark Matter, and St. Vincent's Broken Man.