I have to admit it’s getting better
A little better all the time

– Lennon-McCartney

Back in 2021, somebody released an AI-generated album in the style of the Beatles. Well, maybe “album” is too strong a word, since it was only fifteen minutes long. Also it wasn’t really “music” in the traditional sense. I don’t know how to describe it exactly. Some sort of music-like audio document? It was all garbled and weird, definitely not something you would just put on and listen to like music.

Still though, I was blown away. Despite everything, it really sounded like the Beatles. This was back before ChatGPT blew up, before AI came to mainstream attention. It was a major wow moment for me. I had had the usual skepticism: computers will never be able to make music, computers will never be able to do this or that, etc. Even thought it was just a crude proof of concept, this “album” (or whatever you want to call it) changed my mind. It made me think: this technology is real, and even if today’s AI-generated “music” is gibberish, tomorrow’s may not be.

Now it is 2025, and full-blown real music is being produced by AI. No need for scare quotes – it is actual, listenable music. And I don’t just mean formulaic genre junk like EDM, muzak, lofi beats, etc. I mean genuinely novel, artistically interesting music. And “here today” I would like to highlight a particular example: The Beach Boys Sing The Beatles.

I don’t think the correct vocabulary or conceptual framework has yet been developed to discuss a work like this, so bear with me. Basically this is an album in the style of the Beach Boys where all of the lyrics are from Beatles songs. The songs are not covers of Beach Boys songs and they are not covers of Beatles songs – they are “original” Beach Boys-like songs with seemingly random snippets of recognizable Beatles lyrics.

I want to emphasize a few points.

First, this album is amazing. I cannot stop listening to it. It is so good. It is sometimes claimed that “real music” must, by definition, be produced by humans. Well, if this isn’t real music, what have I been whistling to myself all week? Am I some kind of cretin who cannot identify music? Or is it possible, on the other hand, that the human-creation criterion is just a pointless restriction on the definition of music?

Second, we have these expressions “in the style of the Beach Boys” or “Beach Boys-like”. These crummy circumlocutions really sell it short: this album sounds just like the Beach Boys. And not just cornball striped-shirt surfboards-and-cars Beach Boys. I’m talking about late-60s Brian-at-his-peak fire-helmet Beach Boys. The whole gang is there: Carl, Mike, everyone. And they all sound great. “Carl” in particular has some moments that give me chills, matching his most soulful Wild Honey vocals.

Third, it is difficult to figure out where to start discussing a work like this. For one thing, it is not obvious whether it even is a “work”, or what kind of “work” it is. As I said before, I don’t think the vocabulary or conceptual framework exists to discuss this cogently. The technology is just too new and too dazzling, and traditional theories of art interpretation and criticism have not caught up.

But I would say on its face there are two way to discuss it. The first is as what it actually is, namely an AI-generated album from 2025. Who made it? How exactly was it made? To what extent was there human involvement in its production? I don’t know the answers to any of these questions.

The last question is especially important. In my own experience dealing in AI-generated stuff (images, code, etc), I find that there is a lot of garbage to sort through. It’s rarely the case that you get what you want on the first try. Maybe you get something close to what you want, but not quite. The prompt-evaluate-retry loop can go on for a while. So while the output is “AI-generated”, there may be a substantial human-influenced selection bias in what the final work ends up actually being.

Digging a little further into the specific content of the album, I am most interested to know how the particular Beatles lyrics were chosen. By human? By AI? It is, to put it mildly, a “very strange” selection. If you are able to listen to it and identify all the songs used, I would call you a Beatles expert.

Anyway, that is the first way to discuss this album. The second way to discuss it is as an alternative history work. It is sometimes claimed (again, by definition) that the work is not actually what is important about art; what is important instead is the process that led to the creation of the work.

In this case, it is easy to imagine a backstory that could have led to the creation of this album. Consider: The Beatles broke up in 1969. Brian Wilson, who had for years been driven by friendly competition with the Beatles, was inspired to take a bunch of random lines from Beatles songs and set them to new music. The album was released in 1970 to a combination of puzzlement and acclaim.

This is an eminently plausible scenario. It didn’t happen, but it very well might have. And in that case, what would be the place of BBSB in the Beach Boys canon? How would it be understood in relation to Pet Sounds and Smile? How would the Beatles themselves have responded? Sure, BBSB doesn’t have a real historical context, but that doesn’t mean that these counterfactuals can’t be pondered.

(Things probably would have gone better for the Beach Boys if they had released this album. It’s a lot better than what actually did happen: Brian went nuts, and the rest of the band, lacking any direction or vision, spent the early 70s releasing a string of dull, lifeless, forgettable albums.)

Listen, I could go on all day about this album. In fact, I have been doing that – my family and friends are sick of hearing about it. So I’ll wrap this up with a takeaway message: AI-generated music is here and it’s real. People are still saying that it’s nothing but hype, it’s just a big scam, it will always sound janky and unnatural and weird, it will never be “truly musical”, etc. If you believe any of this, I strongly encourage you to listen to The Beach Boys Sing The Beatles and reassess.

Discussion Questions

Did you listen to BBSB? If so, what did you think?
Which Beatles lyrics were you able to identify? Which were you unable to identify?
Are there any obvious AI-artifacts? Anything that clearly sounds bad, off, unmusical, etc?
What are the “inspirations” behind the album? Are there any specific moments from the album that are clearly ripped off from existing songs?
To what extent is BBSB an “original” musical work? To what extent does it manage to sidestep the problem of “originality” by openly relying on preexisting Beach Boys sounds and Beatles lyrics?
If the Beach Boys actually had released BBSB, to what extent would it have been “original”?
Other than its lyrics, does music consist of anything apart from its pitches, rhythms, timbres, etc?