Artificial Intelligence and Posthumous Releases

When Does Musical Technology Become Unethical?

When the news broke that the first Beatles song in decades to feature all four members would be released, the world was excited. Like millions of others, I tuned in on the 2nd November release day for the mellow ‘Now and Then.’ The song is fine, a decent Beatles track but one that fails to reach the incredible highs of their best works. The listening experience, however, was ruined by a deep unease. John Lennon’s voice is haunting in a new way considering his tragic 1980 murder, and George Harrison’s guitar provided a similar issue. The song features performances that are technically great, but the entire listening experience is hampered by this unease. By the end of the song I had to ask, is this ethical? 

The posthumous music debate is a polarising one that has been present for years, consistently present in fringe debates, and flaring in popular culture after every tragic artist death. There seems to be a consistent cycle for posthumous releases: a tragic death followed months or years later by an estate churning out a series of musical off-cuts and unfinished tapes to diminishing returns. Posthumous releases vary greatly, ranging from critical darlings, like Mac Miller’s 2020 LP Circles, to the maligned, typified by the 1975 Jimi Hendrix release Crash Landing. With each new release a previously ravenous audience becomes increasingly tired of the fading output, a fatigue exacerbated by repeat posthumous releases as the artist’s unreleased back-catalogue thins. 

Tupac Shakur was a famed workaholic before his 1996 murder, leaving behind a wealth of unfinished recordings and material that have since been manipulated into posthumous albums. Not only have more albums been released after his death than before, a gigantic seven out of his eleven LP discography were posthumous releases, but each release has increasingly lost track of his artistic voice and presence. This was particularly prominent in 2004’s Loyal to the Game, where Eminem, the LP’s producer, manipulated Shakur’s voice over bombastic beats that would fit better on his own personal projects. This is the eventuality that awaits most repeat posthumous releases, quality is eventually eroded in favour of sheer quantity.

This then renders the newest technological advancements insidious. With the rapid introduction of AI into the music industry, posthumous albums can not only be churned out quicker than ever before, but an artist having a viable wealth of material to release is no longer a necessity. It’s no longer required that an artist have tracks stored in their vault for varying posthumous releases, instead technology such as artificial intelligence can bridge this gap. 

Giles Martin, the producer of ‘Now and Then’ and son of famed Beatles collaborator George Martin, has taken great pains to stress that the vocal performance heard on the track is entirely Lennon’s with no replication or changes. This however, does not negate the track’s reliance on AI. Lennon’s vocal performance was extracted from a 1970s demo with severely diminished audio quality. The track’s completion in 2023 was entirely dependent on the addition of a new technology - machine-learning assisted audio replacement technology originally commissioned by film director Peter Jackson for his Beatles documentary series, The Beatles: Get Back.   

Machine-learning, a field of study in AI, empowered producers to isolate Lennon’s vocals and finally finish the track after almost five decades of intermittent work. The track was written and performed by the band members themselves over this period, but relied upon the successful introduction and application of this technology to finally be completed. Such a successful and well-received use of AI in popular music thus opens up new, frightening possibilities. 

Technology has always been closely associated with music production, but these new advancements create several ethical concerns. Chief of these is the manipulation of artists’ voices using AI. 2023 saw a wave of AI audios trending across TikTok, with AI covers of popular songs being shared millions of times. The quality of these covers has increased exponentially since their inception. The first audios, including Kanye West singing Taylor Swift’s 2020 ballad ‘this is me trying’ and Taylor Swift covering The Weeknd’s 2016 single ‘Starboy’, had a distinct technological lilt. This mechanical sound has been slowly reduced, however, with recent sounds resembling natural music more and more. 

TikTok AI audios have even branched into original songs. One user, ‘ghostwriter277’, wrote and produced a hip-hop duet. The song, ‘Heart on My Sleeve’, was released on 4th April 2023 and featured AI-generated vocals in the style of Drake and The Weeknd. Audio clips of the song went instantly viral before being removed from the site by the artists’ record label Universal and the song was even submitted, but not nominated, for a Grammy award.  Herein lies the issue, AI’s uncanny vocal replication negates the need for artists to be involved in the recording process, and therefore can even bring an artist's voice back to life. While the AI music sector currently operates mainly within a DIY mindset, the emergence of AI in the creation of this Beatles track signifies the upcoming prominence of AI within the industry. 

Some artists have already openly embraced the technology. Grimes, well-known for her fascination with technology and its application in music, unveiled Elf.Tech. in 2023. The software allows users to create music using an AI formulated version of her own voice, with stipulations that allow users to publish and monetise their work as long as they equally share the royalties. The bold move is the first of its kind and, while few artists will ever embrace AI in the same way, the move establishes that many artists, including Grimes, view AI as unavoidable in the future of music creation. 

What then could the technology do to the posthumous musical sphere? Prince’s distinctive voice can be replicated and sold as a new posthumous project without any of his creative input, production, or consent. The three surviving members of Queen can replace Freddie Mercury on a new album that he’d have no creative input on. The manipulation of Tupac’s vocals on the Eminem-produced posthumous work Loyal to the Game could be pushed even further to create entirely new songs. There’s an appetite for the ability to replicate such iconic voices, Drake’s 2024 song ‘Taylor Made Freestyle’ featured an unauthorised AI sample of Shakur before his estate threatened legal action. 

Artists could therefore be robbed of their creative agency as well as their consent, with posthumous work no longer reliant upon the existence of pre-existing materials. 

The fear of AI entirely replacing artists currently remains a nightmarish hypothetical, however. Record labels have yet to formulate their approach to tackling or embracing the threat AI might pose, and artists are stuck between embracing AI wholeheartedly or attempting to reject access to their voice, artistry, and likeness. Importantly, for posthumous projects the control of an artist’s catalogue, likeness, and musical direction still remains with the artist’s estate. This may not prove to be a comfort, as estate control has long been scrutinised by music fans. With every lacklustre posthumous release, fans’ faith in the appointed stewards to properly guard and retain an artist’s legacy has diminished. With the added facet of AI, it shouldn't be long until we see our first big project or potentially posthumous release powered by the technology. 

Now and Then used AI to aid in the restoration of pre-existing vocal and musical tracks only, but something quite dystopian about the track remains. The estate of John Lennon - controlled by Yoko Ono - presented Paul McCartney with the demo tapes for the song in an assumed request for completion, but hearing the perfected voice of a long-dead musician remains haunting and eerie. In the next few years or even months, hearing the voices of musical legends who have long since passed singing covers or entirely new material may not be as strange as we find it currently, instead we may be looking at the future of musical production and posthumous legacy shaping. 

The posthumous release debate continues to rage, and the addition of constantly evolving technology has assured that it will not fade away any time soon.