The Beatles win their first Grammy in 28 years for ‘Now and Then’
The Beatles are Grammy winners. That goes without saying, but the fact that the legendary band is still collecting trophies in 2025 is quite a feat considering it was 60 years ago that they won Best New Artist from the Recording Academy. This year they received two nominations: Record of the Year and Best Rock Performance for “Now and Then.” They won in the latter category during pre-televised portion of the awards, bringing their all-time total to eight.
“Play the Beatles’ music to your kids,” said John Lennon‘s son Sean Ono Lennon, who accepted the award. “I feel like the world can’t afford to forget about people like the Beatles. We need this music in the world; we need peace and love.”
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It’s surprising that the Beatles haven’t won more given their world renown and influence on rock ‘n’ roll. Before Sunday, the band had only collected seven previous trophies, including Album of the Year for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. But they never won Record of the Year despite four previous nominations for some of their most famous songs: “I Want to Hold Your Hand” (1965), “Yesterday” (1966), “Hey Jude” (1969), and “Let It Be” (1971). Their biggest year at the Grammys was actually in 1997 when they were awarded three times: Best Music Video and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for “Free as a Bird” and Best Music Film for The Beatles Anthology.
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“Now and Then” could have been a controversial choice to win a Grammy. The unfinished composition by John Lennon was completed by Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in 2023 with the help of machine-learning technology. Voters might have balked at rewarding a song that incorporates any kind of artificial intelligence, which is a particularly thorny subject among creative professionals who fear that AI will be used to put them out of work. But appreciation for the Beatles clearly outweighed any technological concerns.
Sean Ono Lennon also collected his first Grammy on Sunday. He won on his first nomination for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package for a six-disc box set of his father’s Mind Games. “The real amazing coincidence is that I get to go to the Grammys for my first nomination for working on my dad’s album the same year that the Beatles are up for two Grammys for a song that my dad wrote [‘Now and Then’]. That does feel really beautiful,” Ono Lennon told Gold Derby recently. “It’s pretty remarkable, honestly, that the Beatles are still able to get Grammy nominations after all this time.”
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