While many people would (and probably should) claim that the Beatles are the best band, most aliens would definetly disagree. But the fab four are going to become radio stars in a whole new way, and this is why.On Monday, NASA will broadcast the Beatles’ song “Across the Universe” across the galaxy to Polaris, the North Star. This is the first beaming of a radio song by the space agency directly into deep space and weirdly enough, it is nostalgia-driven.

In case you don’t know, it celebrates the 40th anniversary of the song and the 45th anniversary of NASA’s Deep Space Network. “Send my love to the aliens,” Paul McCartney told NASA through a Beatles historian. “All the best, Paul.” Too bad John and George are not here to witness their first intergalactic hit.

The song, written by McCartney and John Lennon will travel at the speed of light but it will take it 431 years along a long and winding road to reach its final destination. For this, NASA used an MP3 of the song, just under four minutes in its original version, and will transmit it digitally at 7 p.m. EST Monday from its giant antenna in Madrid, Spain. Reach for the stars, Beatles!

This week’s US Billboard chart, is a real surprise to all of us, namely the soundtrack for the critical acclaimed comedy Juno. Behind this sudden abundance of sales, most certainly stands the movies high popularity and it’s recent four Oscar nominations. So, after four weeks on the chart, the Juno soundtrack finally claimed the top spot, selling 64,381 copies to overtake Alicia Keys’ As I Am, which fell to two. It’s the first film soundtrack to top the chart since last year’s “Dreamgirls.”

Natasha Bedingfield’s sophomore new album Pocketful of Sunshine made its debut at number three, while Mary J. Blige’s Growing Pains and Radiohead’s In Rainbows round out the top five.

In 1965, the band was booked to play in Israel and everything seemed set for a huge concert. But the, the government refused to grant the necessary permits on the ground that its music might corrupt the country’s morals. Everybody was sorry, and the regret remained.But now, it seems Israel wants to make it all right again, and they invited the surviving members to participate in a concert celebrating the country’s 60th birthday. But still, the Israeli embassy in London is denying a repord in which the Jewish state had apologized for its original refusal to let the Beatles perform in the country.

So a letter was adressed to Sir Paul McCartney and Richard Starkey, better known as Ringo Starr, which said: “Israel missed a chance to learn from the most influential musicians of the decade, and the Beatles missed an opportunity to reach out to one of the most passionate audiences in the world.”

Well this is great news for Israeli fans even though just half a band is going to be there. Still, the chance of seeing both Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr is not something you want to miss. The letter concludes: “On our 60th anniversary, we would like to take the opportunity to offer you a second chance to play in Israel.”

The digital music rivalry between iTunes and Amazon has reached a new level, with the music industry’s latest bomb shell. Earlier today, the social music network last.fm, home of over 15 million active users, signed a deal with all four major labels as well as over 150,000 labels and artists, for a new service, that enables users to listen to their favorite songs on-demand.

As part of the deal, Last.fm will give users access to any song they like and stream it for free thanks to ad revenue that will come from page views and demographically-specific videos. Listeners are permitted three free streams per song, after which they are given the option of purchasing an mp3 of the song from … you’ve guest it: Amazon.

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A few days ago, this year’s lineup, for the 2008 Coachella Music and Arts Festival, has been announced, now pre-sale tickets for the dessert fest go out today via Ticketmaster, starting 10am (Pacific Time) and ends at 10pm (Pacific Time), or until tickets run out.(Password=DESERT). Last year’s Coachella fest tickets sold out, just in a matter of weeks, so if you’re a fan, you’d better hurry.

This strike has been going on for some time and I’m beggining to wonder how things are going to turn out. I think they have a very good point and every right to keep staying on strike, but at the same time I’m curios about how much longer this is going to last.

Well Hollywood writers have decided against picketing the upcoming Grammy Awards but the Writers Guild of America’s board of directors has yet to do so. The guild previously said it was unlikely to grant the Recording Academy a waiver for the Feb. 10 show, the music industry’s most important event, set to be broadcast live on CBS from Los Angeles.

So the funny thing is that the Golden Globes have had the same problem and the whole lavish and filled with extravaganza show is going to last just half an hour! It was supposed to last 3 hours, which if you know a bit of math is 6 times longer.

But unlike the Golden Globes which rely a great deal on scripts, the Grammys rely mostly on nominee performances. So they are going to take place. As the song goes… the show must go on!

This year’s 80th Oscar nominees are  in, with it’s fare share of pleasant and well, not so pleasant surprises. As not so pleasant goes, we were a bit dishearten when the nominees list was posted, earlier this morning, and we couldn’t score Johnny Greenwood or Eddie Vedder on the list, despite countless critical appraisal. We remind that Johnny scored the soundtrack for one of this years, best picture nominee There Will Be Blood, while Eddie won a Golden Globe this year with his “Guaranteed” from Into The Wild, but the Academy Awards people know best.

The best song category of the Academy Awards is dominated by, the fairy tale film Enchanted’s, soundtrack  with a whooping three out of five nominations, all with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, in the form of “Happy Working Song,” “So Close” and “That’s How You Know.”

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After a lifetime of playing soldout to crowds and in every corner of the world, U2 have done what their fans do all the time: line up to see a u2 show. That concert was “U2 3D,” a film of the band’s 2005-06 Vertigo tour, shot at several shows in South America with new 3-D technology.”I was really hoping we weren’t crap after all these years. Luckily we weren’t,” guitarist The Edge told The Associated Press before the band donned plastic glasses to watch the movie’s premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on Saturday night. The Edge was joined by singer Bono, drummer Larry Mullen and bassist Adam Clayton and he joked about the nonsense of watching themselves perform.

“It’s kind of horrific,” to see himself on stage in 3-D, said Bono. “It’s bad enough on a small screen. Now you get to see the lard arse 40-foot tall.” The Edge said the 3-D technology allowed “the songs to shine through,” though he was surprised to see the chemistry of the band in the details on screen, and how far apart his bandmates were on stage. “Are you saying you felt lonely up there?” said Bono, smiling. “No, I felt lonely for Larry,” The Edge replied.

“Irish people are essentially Latin people who don’t know how to dance,” he said. “When people are screaming and roaring and shouting, the humbling thing is to realize it’s not really for the band or artist on the stage. It’s for their connection with the songs. A song just can own you … . I think that’s why concerts are so powerful. If that song is such a part of your life, and you hear it, it’s too much almost.”. That’s the spirit lads.

The BRITs, are the British Phonographic Industry’s annual music awards. This year they seem to be very interesting with nominees including Montreal band Arcade Fire, Toronto singer Leslie Feist and Vancouver crooner Michael Buble. That is just naming a few.

Arcade Fire were nominated for best international group, while their CD, “Neon Bible” is up for best international album. Feist is going to compete in the category of best international female artist, while Buble was nominated for best male international artist.

But overall the flamboyant singer/songwriter Mika, boy band Take That and Leona Lewis dominated the nominations. They all received four nominations and will compete in the Best British Album and Best British Single categories for the awards which are going to be announced in a ceremony hosted by Ozzy and Sharon Osborne on Feb. 20.

The Arctic Monkeys, Mark Ronson, Kaiser Chiefs and Kate Nash each have three nominations a piece. Lewis, winner of Simon Cowell’s British star-search show “X Factor,” is competing to be the Best British Female singer with Kate Nash, KT Tunstall, PJ Harvey and Bat For Lashes. She is also fighting against Mika in the Best British Breakthrough act. Also Paul McCartney is going to receive a special well deserved award for his contribution to music.

If you’re trying to occupy yourself with something fun or just make the time run faster at work, then I warmly recommend a little game web based game I’ve been playing for hours now, called Gorillaz Cookie Game. Obviously the purpose of the game is to eat as many cookies as possible in a given time limit. Play the game on Facebook now and be sure the boss doesn’t sees you.