As the festive music streaming season approaches, a classic Christmas perennial has been given a new twist thanks to an innovative use of responsibly-trained AI technology.
Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree was the No.1 song in the US for three weeks in 2023, topping the US Hot 100 chart more than half a century after it was recorded and released in 1958 by the then 13-year-old star. It has made the UK Top 5 for the past three years.
The Spanish version, Noche Buena y Navidad, was refreshed by producer Aureo Baqueiro. The original music and background vocals were retained, while Lee’s original lead vocal was replaced with a newly translated Spanish language vocal, created using a new AI vocal model, derived from her voice that has been fully approved by Lee.
Noche Buena y Navidad (Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree) is available today via MCA Nashville/UMe. It is available for streaming here.
The track’s new vocal was created with the help of SoundLabs AI’s MicDrop, an AI audio plug-in which allows a user to transform their voice into another voice or instrument. In partnership with UMG, SoundLabs is creating official ultra-high fidelity vocal models for artists, using their own voice data for training while giving them full artistic approval and control of the output.
Earlier this year, Universal Music Group entered into a strategic partnership with SoundLabs, a new AI technology company founded by Grammy-nominated producer, composer, software developer and electronic artist BT.
Noche Buena y Navidad is the first collaboration with a UMG artist to be released and marks the first time that a music company has used ethically trained AI to release a new language version of a classic song, created responsibly with the artist’s involvement and authorisation.
“I am so blown away by this new Spanish version of Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree, which was created with the help of AI,” said Brenda Lee. “Throughout my career, I performed and recorded many songs in different languages, but I never recorded Rockin’ in Spanish, which I would have loved to do. To have this out now is pretty incredible and I’m happy to introduce the song to fans in a new way.”
“We are thrilled to work with Brenda Lee to make Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree the first classic song translated responsibly into another language with the power of AI,” said UMe president & CEO, Bruce Resnikoff. “We are also very excited about the possibilities of this emerging technology and look forward to harnessing its capabilities to introduce new material created by and approved by our artists.”
I am so blown away by this new Spanish version of Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree, which was created with the help of AI
Brenda Lee
“The minute you hear Brenda Lee’s iconic voice on Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree, you know it’s the official start of Christmas,” said UMG Nashville chair & CEO, Cindy Mabe. “The global hit has touched people all over the world and kept this young 13-year-old spirit of Christmas captured in a time capsule. We are all so excited for this new Spanish version created with the help of AI from that legendary voice and approved by Brenda Lee herself to help celebrate this enduring, timeless classic.”
Baqueiro’s first step was to adapt the lyrics from English to Spanish, aiming to capture the essence of the original but also ensuring that the lyrics, phonetics and rhyming structure felt natural to the Spanish language.
Leyla Hoyle, a Chilean-born, LA-based Latin vocalist was brought in to sing the vocals in Spanish while mimicking Lee’s unique vocal patterns – matching pitch, tone breaths and phrasings of the original recording.
Baqueiro then delivered the Spanish vocal stem to SoundLabs, who were provided with hours of isolated vocal stems from Lee’s UMG archives to create a unique bespoke AI vocal model based on her voice, including the original version of Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree.
Hoyle’s Spanish vocal was then put through the Brenda Lee vocal AI model (built leveraging the MicDrop technology), which modified the Spanish vocal to sound like Lee’s voice. Lastly, Baqueiro mixed the AI-created Spanish vocal back into the original music bed.
According to the announcement, the new Spanish version “demonstrates how AI can be used to expand the horizons of artistry while being respectful of artists and used with their full authorisation”.
“This project was a tremendously exciting showcase for MicDrop, our real-time voice-to-voice plugin,” said SoundLabs founder BT. “Training a model based on the 13-year-old Brenda Lee, using original masters, was both a rewarding challenge and a creative breakthrough. We’re thrilled with how this technology breathes new life into a beloved Christmas classic, blending innovation with tradition in a truly human way.”
UMG supports bipartisan legislation introduced in the US Congress to protect individuals’ voice and visual likeness from unauthorised computer-generated recreations, using generative AI and other technologies, like deepfakes and voice/image clones. The bill, known as the NO FAKES Act, has overwhelming support across the creative community.
Brenda Lee recently joined hundreds of artists, songwriters and other creators supporting the legislation in an open letter published by the Human Artistry Campaign, the global organisation backing responsible AI.
FOLLOW 
