There’s something about the original Anthology mix that was moving, because John Lennon sounded out of place, like a ghost. Almost as if the ghost of John Lennon had returned from the afterlife to reunite with his old friends for one last singalong. I never really saw this as a flaw; in fact, the contrast between the polished studio recording and the demo-quality vocals gave it a unique emotional poignancy.

With the reissue, though, hearing John’s vocals crystal clear admittedly gave me chills, almost as if he were alive again, back from the dead, recording in the same room as the other Beatles. It creates a beautiful yet unsettling illusion that the Beatles are back. I believe they used AI to isolate his vocals and remove the background noise, static, and room reverb. I like it, and I think it complements the original Anthology recording well; however, there is a certain unsettling feeling about this remix.

It’s not because I have moral qualms about using AI technology to improve vocal clarity from a poorly recorded demo. Rather, it’s because, after being so intimately familiar with the original Anthology mix, this version feels like a form of technological necromancy, where the symbolic ghost is brought back to life even though we know it isn’t. Yes, the Anthology mix was itself a kind of necromancy on Lennon’s demo recordings, given the technology available at the time, but it never created the illusion that he was truly alive in the way this new remix does. In the Anthology version, Lennon’s voice was so unclear that it kept him slightly apart from the surviving Beatles, and hence there were no pretensions beyond that the recording was a creative remix rather than “The Beatles are back”. It was the surviving members’ celebration of the life of a friend who had passed away.

That tension, the beauty of hearing him vividly “alive” again, mixed with the awareness that it is a disturbing illusion, makes this remix strangely powerful. Does it matter if it is an illusion if it produces such a strong emotional reaction? Perhaps this remix is a great artistic achievement precisely because it generates this disturbing blend of feelings.