Do The Beatles deserve a Grammy nomination for ‘Now and Then’?
The nominations have been revealed and The Beatles are in with a chance of bagging yet another Grammy after ‘Now and Then’ got a nod for ‘Record of the Year’. Is it deserved or a desperate bid to attach a big name to the dwindling ceremony? Does it showcase a bright new future where technology unearths countless untold possibilities or is it a dangerous flirtation with AI?
These are more pertinent questions than the ones the Grammy nominations usually prompt. After all, it is fairly notable that a band who folded over half a century ago are in competition with the likes of Charli XCX, Chappell Roan and Taylor Swift. They wouldn’t be their without the aid of artificial intelligence—the very same artificial intelligence that could replace 300 million jobs by 2030, according to a Goldman Sachs study.
Is that something to fear or have The Beatles showcased how there are good and bad applications of all pioneering technology and ‘Now and Then’ presents a positive potential? Well, it is fitting that The Beatles should pose that question. When they first emerged, in the aftermath of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where it became clear that the technological fix had major pitfalls, they seamlessly incorporated progression into their art—offering hope for the future in the process.
Picking up where Pet Sounds left off, they illuminate a bright alternative future for the world, where tech was used to create ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ not state-of-the-art B52s. Now, once more, when love seems to be in short supply and fears mount around dreaded AI, the band looked on the bright side, transfiguring something baleful into a tool for beautiful art.
When I recently spoke to Yihao Chen, the man set to (potentially) change music forever with ITOKA, I was positively comforted. ”You already know that The Beatles successfully adopted synthesiser at the very, very beginning, using Yamaha synthesisers in a lot of their famous songs, and it was a hit! Now everybody loves it and admires the way that they adopted new technologies as a sound source in the music,” he said, hinting that AI will follow the same trajectory of feared to accepted thanks to great artistic applications.
There was backlash and fears in the Beatles’ day, too. Just as there had been a few decades earlier. In America, in 1942, music was silenced. It was a time when people needed it more than ever, given that the nation had just joined the Second World War, but that gave little cause for the American Federation of Musicians union head, James C. Petrillo, to pause his call to action because juxeboxes and cinema audio had just put thousands of live musicians out of work.
This is indicative of the double-edged sword of music’s relationship with technology. Microphones gave crooners a chance to have their voices heard, and then jukeboxes kicked them to the curb. Perhaps in time, fears over AI infiltarting art and replacing the soul of creation will seem as silly as questioning whether a bar should be allowed to play a vinyl rather than pay someone to play the piano live.
However, that doesn’t solve the debate as to whether ‘Now and Then’ is worthy of a nomination. Simply put, 99.9% of Beatles fans would surely accept that it isn’t their finest work. Moreover, there have undoubtedly been far better releases from the world of alternative music in the last year, too. The song certainly has a warming sentimentality to it and moved people no end upon release, but it does feel a little shoehorned into the pop selection for ‘Record of the Year’ and that is more than just a little bit sinister.
Granted, the Grammys are just an awards event and should always be taken with a grain of salt. They were pretty much invented as a chance for the press to party with their favourite stars. But they are still a key part of the discourse of music and it seems painfully problematic that eschewing art of the highest order from artists in need of exposure, in favour of championing the virality that comes with having the biggest name in music history embraced once again – without proper refelctions on the divisive technology that made it possible in the first place – illuminates the many battles that the integrity of modern music faces.
So, simply put, while ‘Now and Then’ is a good and important song, its inclusion in the nominations seems to hint towards the unconscionable issues for art in the age of libertarian capitalism more so than a reconciliation of the bright side hidden among its nettlesome midst.
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