Sir Paul McCartney is enjoying the release of his 1964: Eyes Of The Storm, a photo archive published in book form on June 13 and soon debuting as an exhibit at London’s National Portrait Gallery. The collection captures the height of The Beatles, better known as Beatlemania, but The Beatles aren’t stuck in the past.
“Been great to see such an exciting response to our forthcoming Beatles project,” McCartney tweeted on Thursday morning, June 22. “No one is more excited than us to be sharing something with you later in the year.”
Oh? There’s more.
“We’ve seen some confusion and speculation about it,” McCartney continued (same tweet, thanks Elon Musk). “Seems to be a lot of guess work out there. Can’t say too much at this stage but 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. More news in due course – Paul.”
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
McCartney explicitly cautioned against guessing, but curiosity often overrides caution, and it’s possible that McCartney is referring to comments he made earlier this month about the use of AI in making Peter Jackson’s Get Back documentary, leading to finishing a Beatles song featuring the late John Lennon.
“[Jackson] was able to extricate [Lennon’s] voice from a ropey little bit of cassette,” McCartney told Radio 4’s Today Programme (as relayed by NME). “We had John’s voice and a piano, and he could separate them with AI. They tell the machine, ‘That’s the voice. This is a guitar. Lose the guitar.’
“So when we came to make what will be the last Beatles’ record, it was a demo that John had, [and] we were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI. Then we can mix the record, as you would normally do. So it gives you some sort of leeway. We just finished it up and it’ll be released this year.”