A new Beatles song produced with a little help from artificial intelligence and including the vocals of John Lennon was released on Thursday (Nov 2) - to lukewarm reviews.
The song comes more than four decades after it was originally recorded as a demo, but despite the hype left critics distinctly underwhelmed.
Now And Then, first written and sung by Lennon in 1978, was finished by his fellow band members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Now And Then was one of several tracks on a cassette that Lennon had recorded for McCartney at his home in New York's Dakota Building in 1979 - a year before his death.Two other songs, Free As A Bird and Real Love, were cleaned up by the producer Jeff Lynne, and released in 1995 and 1996. An attempt was made to do the same with Now And Then but the project was abandoned due to background noise on the demo.
Recording at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, they also added Starr's drum part alongside bass, piano, a slide guitar solo by McCartney - inspired by Harrison - and more backing vocals.