The Beatles’ ‘Now and Then’ Makes History As First AI-Assisted Song to Earn Grammy Nomination
The song, which was released last November and completed with the use of AI, has been nominated in the Record of the Year and Best Rock Performance categories.
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“Now and Then” by the Beatles has been nominated for Record of the Year and Best Rock Performance at the 2025 Grammy Awards — marking the first time a song created with the assistance of artificial intelligence has earned a Grammy nomination.
When “Now and Then” first came out in late 2023, the disclosure that it was finalized utilizing AI caused an uproar. At the time, many fans assumed that the remaining Fab Four members — Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr — must have used generative AI to deepfake the late John Lennon. That was not actually the case. Instead, the Beatles used a form of AI known as “stem separation” to help them clean up a 60-year-old, low-fidelity demo recorded by Lennon during his lifetime and to make it useable in a finished master recording.
With stem separation, the Beatles could isolate Lennon’s vocal and get rid of excess noise. Proponents of this form of technology say it has major benefits for remastering and cleaning up older catalogs. Recently, AudioShake, a leading company in this space, struck a partnership with Disney Music Group to help the media giant clean up its older catalog to “unlock new listening and fan engagement experiences” like lyric videos, film/TV licensing opportunities, re-mastering and more.
AI has been a controversial topic for the Recording Academy over the last two years. In the summer of 2023, the Recording Academy, led by CEO Harvey Mason Jr., hosted a roundtable discussion about the matter, bringing in labels, tech executives, streaming services and artists to gather their thoughts on potential Grammy eligibility for AI-assisted or generated music. One of the artists included in the roundtable was Ghostwriter, the anonymous producer who kicked off the AI music hype with his song “Heart on My Sleeve,” which deepfaked Drake and The Weeknd. Mason told the New York Times that he contacted Ghostwriter directly on social media and was impressed with “Heart on My Sleeve.”
Later that year, Ghostwriter’s team submitted “Heart on My Sleeve” for two categories at the Grammy Awards — Best Rap Song and Song of the Year — both songwriting-based awards that would be credited to Ghostwriter, given he wrote the melody and lyrics of the track without the assistance of AI.
Later, Mason had to clarify his comments to the Times after the article caught fire online with a number of news outlets reposting the Times story with headlines that equated allowing “Heart on My Sleeve” be submitted in the songwriting categories with the Recording Academy condoning the way that Ghostwriter used AI to deepfake Drake and The Weeknd’s voices in the production of his song without permission.
“I’m sorry, but I have to clear up some of this bad and really inaccurate information that’s starting to float around,” Mason said in a video posted to social media. “This version of ‘Heart on My Sleeve’ using the AI voice modeling, that sounds like Drake and The Weeknd, it’s not eligible for Grammy consideration.”
When Ghostwriter spoke to Billboard for his digital cover in October 2023, he maintained he would still be eligible for the Grammy categories in which he submitted. A Recording Academy representative later confirmed that he was still eligible for the songwriting-related awards, but only through the last-minute submission of a new version of “Heart on My Sleeve,” released on streaming services, that stripped away the AI voice elements. The new version of the song was released the same day, Sept. 8, that Mason Jr. made his statement clarifying that the AI-version of the song was ineligible, but never mentioned the quietly-released version without AI. Ultimately, Ghostwriter’s “Heart On My Sleeve” failed to earn a nomination last year.
The two nominations for “Now and Then” mark the Beatles’ first nominations at the Grammy Awards in decades and the fourth time the group has been nominated in the Record of the Year category. They were first nominated in the category in the mid-1960s with “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and were later nominated for “Hey Jude” and “Let It Be” as well.
The Beatles have never won in this category.
