There is a scene from the 2019 film “Yesterday” where protagonist Jack is overcome with joy at seeing a former Beatle member alive and well in a seaside cottage.
Modern music history is replete with such “what ifs.”
What if The Beatles had never broken up? What if John Lennon was not gunned down in 1980? What if Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys had completed his magnum opus, “Smile”, and did not suffer mental decline?
Needless to say, popular music would likely look and feel very different from what we experience today.
Yet the rise of artificial intelligence—specifically the creation of music and art with AI—has spurred some to dabble into the “what ifs” of musical history….