The Beatles‘ new song, produced with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), is on track to become the best-selling song in the UK, according to the Official Charts organization, which compiles data on the most popular songs.
“Now and then”, composed by John Lennon in 1978, was completed by Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, with the help of AI to include chords by George Harrison.
The song was released on Thursday and after just 10 hours it was already at number 42 in the UK. It is expected to reach number one when the official list of most popular songs is announced next Friday, according to Official Charts.
This would be the band’s 18th song to reach number one on the British charts. The last time was in 1969 with “The Ballad of John and Yoko”, shortly before the group split in April 1970.
Despite the anticipation before its release, “Now and Then” received lukewarm reviews.
McCartney, 81, announced the song’s release in June and promoted it as “the last Beatles song.”
“Now and Then” is one of the songs that Lennon recorded on tape at his home in New York in 1979, a year before he was murdered. The recordings were given to McCartney in 1994 by Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono.
The other two songs, “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love”, were rescued by producer Jeff Lynne and released in 1995 and 1996, but the recording of “Now and Then” had a lot of background noise and could not be used commercially , until the development of AI technology.