Music | Maybe even more new Beatles music will be heard, says director Peter Jackson

Supervisor Peter Jackson has hinted that there may be more Beatles music in the future.

Last Thursday, The Beatles released their “last” song Now and Then.

The song was assembled from a demo recording, which John Lennon had recorded at his home in New York in the late 1970s.

In the now published version, the same artificial intelligence technology developed by Peter Jackson’s film studio was used, which he used in his Beatles documentary a couple of years ago Get Back. The technique was used to clean and separate sounds from a low-quality cassette recording.

Now Jackson has revealed According to The Guardianthat in the archival material he went through Get Back -while making the documentary, there might be more previously unreleased music.

The director went through 60 hours of visual material and 150 hours of audio material for an eight-hour film The Beatles: Get Back – documentary series. It filmed the Beatles’ studio sessions in January 1969, when the band was developing new material for the upcoming Let It Be to his album. Songs were also practiced at the same time Abbey Road songs that ended up on the album and the band members’ solo albums.

In addition to the music, the series brought out the band’s internal conflicts.

“We could remove a song from the documentary, remove John from it [Lennon] and George’s [Harrison] parts and then afterwards add Paul and Ringo to the chorus or stems,” the director said For The Sunday Times. “It might turn out to be a decent song. But I haven’t discussed this with Paul yet,” Jackson continued.

“This is kind of a fan boy thing. But certainly doable.”

Now and Then was accompanied by tapes that John Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono gave in 1994 to the three surviving Beatles.

At that time, the band members were trying to finish the demo made by Lennon The Beatles Anthology for his project, but especially George Harrison was of the opinion that it is not good enough to publish. However, two other songs from Lennon’s four demo recordings got a new life at that time, the songs Free as a Bird and Real Love.

Years later Paul McCartney contacted Jackson for help in making a new version.

Lennon’s vocals were extracted from the demo recording using artificial intelligence and the entire song was reconstructed. McCartney’s and Ringo Starr new parts as well as George Harrison’s guitar parts recorded in the 1990s.

“When the world is in this situation, we need new music from the Beatles. It was as if a flying saucer had landed and they offered us one last song to cheer us up,” Jackson painted to The Sunday Times.

Last week was also published Now and Then -a video about the production of the single. In it, Paul McCartney wonders if it makes sense to make new songs from Lennon’s demos. He wonders if it’s disrespectful when it’s still a work in progress.

In the end, McCartney concluded that John Lennon himself would have wanted them to finish the song.

Now and Then received a positive reception from the public right after its release. After being out for only ten hours, the song rose to number 42 on the British singles chart. When the new chart is published next Friday, it is expected to be at the top, reports news agency AFP.

If the song reaches number one, it will be the Beatles’ 18th chart-topper in the UK and their first chart-topper since 1969.

Critics, on the other hand, have had mixed reactions to the song. “Now and Then isn’t gross — but, after all, it’s pretty mundane,” wrote a reviewer for The Washington Post.

“Now and Then falls short of the bittersweetness of the Beatles’ end-of-life ballads, but it is a more honorable ending than the old songs. As long as it’s not any more,” wrote HS Arttu Seppänen.

“Classic, bittersweet, Beatles-esque taste,” wrote The Times critic, who also assessed that artificial intelligence has been used in the best possible way.

“Unfortunately, none of this takes away from the fact that the Beatles’ last song is far from a lost masterpiece.”