If hearing “Jingle Bells” and “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree” makes you want to puke, well, you better get those barf bags out, because Chrsitmas music isn’t going anywhere.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, when U.S. radio stations began playing christmas music 24/7, they raked in $20.1 billion, up 8 per cent from last year. So, if you’re a total Scrooge about the holiday music, you better buy some metal CDs to have handy in your car.

“There’s no other programming tactic in radio history that consistently delivers ratings increases better than Christmas music,” says senior VP of Clear Channel, Darren Davis.

When radio stations go the festive route, there are more chances you may hear the same annoying holiday song more than once in the office. For example, KYXY-FM in San Diego, played Bing Crosby’s version of “White Christmas” six times in one day. Given that the young guy has four holiday singels already, I wonder how many times Justin Bieber will come up on the radio today.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, here are the six most popular Christmas songs on the radio:

1. John Lennon – “Happy Christmas (War is Over)”

2. Andy Williams – “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”

3. Burl Ives – “Have a Holly Holly Christmas”

4. Mariah Carey – “All I Want For Christmas is You”

5. Nat King Cole – “The Christmas Song”

6.  Jose Feliciano- ”Feliz Navidad”

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Liam Gallagher, of Oasis and brotherly conduct fame, and his new band Beady Eye have released a cover of the Beatles’ “Across the Universe” to raise funds for the British Red Cross’s Japan Tsunami Appeal.

Profits from the single will be donated to help victims suffering from the earthquake and tsunami last month.

The single can be found on the band’s official website along with a statement: “The day before the charity event, during an eight-hour session, Beady Eye went into RAK studios to record and mix their version of the song from the Beatles’ ‘Let it Be’ album.”

It will be availably on their site for a limited time only at for $1.60, with a dollar from each sale going directly to the Red Cross.

Beady Eye debuted the song at a Japan benefit concert on Sunday night at London’s O2 Academy Brixton alongside Graham Coxon, the Coral, Paul Weller and Primal Scream. The show has so far raised over $242, 600 for Japan.

Needless to say, John Lennon would be proud. In fact, the original song was used for the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) charity album in 1969. The album itself was inspired after the song’s chorus: ‘No One’s Going to Change Our World’.

What is brother Noel Gallagher up to?

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A 1968 interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono that was never published in full has been unearthed, according to NME.com.

Keele University student Maurice Hindle, along with a friend, went to Lennon’s Surrey home to conduct the six-hour interview, which has now been published in the New Statesman.

Hindle explained that himself and his friend, who first contacted Lennon by writing to him through the Beatles Monthly fanzine, were picked up from Weybridge train station by the Beatle himself.

“Outside Weybridge station, a Mini Cooper with smoked-glass windows skidded to a halt, like something out of The Italian Job,” Hindle said. “In the driver’s seat was Lennon. We students crammed into the back of the Mini and John drove us up the bumpy private road that led to his house, Kenwood.”

In the interview, Lennon talked about the criticism aimed at him and The Beatles earlier in 1968 by socialist commentator Tariq Ali in his Black Dwarf publication.

“He says ‘Revolution’ was no more revolutionary than Mrs Dale’s Diary,” Lennon said to Hindle about Ali. “So it mightn’t have been. But the point is to change your head – it’s no good knocking down a few old bloody Tories.”

“What does he think he’s gonna change?” the singer continued. “The system’s what he says it is: a load of crap. But just smashing it up isn’t gonna do it.”

More of the interview can be seen at Newstatesman.com.

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Imagine all the stories…

A preview for the upcoming film about the Beatles’ John Lennon has been released, reports NME.com. The film, entitled “Nowhere boy,” is about Lennon’s childhood and adolescence. It features Kristin Scott Thomas and screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh.

The film is based on the book, “Imagine This: Growing Up With My Brother John Lennon” by Lennon’s half sister Julia Baird. The movie is also said to feature music from Goldfrapp.

“Nowhere boy” premieres tonight (Oct. 29) as part of the London Film Festival’s closing night. It has a general release date in the United Kingdom slated for Dec. 26.

The movie is directed by Sam Taylor-Wood, and was filmed in Lennon’s childhood city of Liverpool, according to rollingstone.com. It stars British actor Aaron Johnson as Lennon.

“Nowhere boy” will also show the teenage Lennon meeting future bandmate Paul McCartney – played in the movie by Thomas Sangster – for the first time. The two men would later become band mates in the Quarrymen, which paved the way for one of the most popular bands of all time.

But as Rolling Stone points out, the film is less about the development of the Beatles, and more about the relationships between Lennon and his mother and aunt. His mother, Julia, died in a 1958 car crash when she was 44; Lennon was only 17.

It is still unclear whether the film picked up the rights to use the Beatles’ music in the film, and the trailer does not offer any insight. The film so far does not have a North American release date. Rolling Stone had previously reported that the Weinstein Company had received the distribution rights for “Nowhere boy,” but it is not on their current schedule.

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For a generation of people who missed out on the 1960s and the advent of rock’n'roll, we sure are getting to be well-versed. Yet another biopic is slated for release this October, this time in the name of John Lennon.

Nowhere Boy is based on the book Imagine This: Growing Up with my Brother John Lennon by Lennon’s half sister Julia Baird, according to Pitchfork. The screenplay was written by Matt Greenhalgh, author of the Joy Division film Control. The film will focus more on Baird’s experience growing up with the rising star, perhaps offering a unique insight into what transformed Lennon into one of the most idyllic artists of our time.

On board to direct in his feature film debut is Sam Taylor Wood, whose repertoire includes the BAFTA-nominated punk short Love You More.

The cast includes Kristin Scott Thomas, (The English Patient and Four Weddings and a Funeral), will play Lennon’s aunt, who raised Lennon, as well as Anne Marie Duff (Shameless, also James McAvoy’s wife) and Aaron Johnson (who plays the heartthrob in Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging).

The obvious next question: What about the soundtrack? So far, Goldfrapp has been enlisted to compose the score and will record it at Abbey Road Studios. The film will close the London Film Festival in late October.

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Visual artist Sam Taylor-Wood will bring the story of John Lennon’s early years to the big screen.

Taylor-Wood has signed on to direct the biopic “Nowhere Boy,” which will focus on the Beatle’s childhood and the influence his mother and aunt had on his subsequent career.

As previously announced, the movie is being scripted by Matt Greenhalgh, the same screenwriter behind the 2007 Ian Curtis biopic “Control.”

Casting for the major roles is underway, according to producer Ecosse Films.

Taylor-Wood, who will be making her feature directorial debut, is known for her contemporary art in video, photography and film. Her debut short “Love You More” was nominated for the short-film Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The artist-turned-director told ScreenDaily.com that “Nowhere Boy” was the film she had been looking to direct following her short.

“The story spoke to me on so many levels — both personal and artistic,” she said.

“The women in John’s early life truly shaped who he became and the strengths and weaknesses of their relationships are central to this film.”

The movie will begin shooting March 2009 in Lennon’s home city of Liverpool.

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The early life of ex-Beatle John Lennon will be turned into a movie based on a controversial book by his half-sister.

Plans for the film “Nowhere Boy” were set into motion Thursday after it was awarded funding by the U.K. Film Council.

Matt Greenhalgh, who wrote the critically acclaimed Ian Curtis biopic “Control,” will pen the script based on “Imagine This: Growing Up With My Brother John Lennon” by Lennon’s half-sister Julia Baird.

Released in 2007, the book attracted controversy because of Baird’s portrayal of Mary (Mimi) Smith, the aunt who raised Lennon from the age of four, as a woman who was extremely jealous of her younger sister, Lennon and Baird’s mother.

Scriptwriter Greenhalgh told BBC News that the book took him “into a world that illuminated so much about this legendary genius. I could see the drama and film immediately – the women in his life, the men who weren’t, the birth of rock and roll, all imposing on a brilliantly complicated adolescent mind.”

He added, “Without this story we would never have heard The Beatles. Can you imagine that?”

It won’t be Greenhalgh’s first time adapting a book to film — he wrote “Control” based on “Touching From A Distance,” written by Curtis’ wife Debbie.

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A Canadian is auctioning off his hand written copy of the lyrics to “Give Peace a Chance,” written by John Lennon himself.

The Globe and Mail reports that Gail Renard, a 55-year-old originally from Montreal, got the lyrics during Lennon’s bed-in for peace in 1969 at Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth hotel.

Renard, then 16, snuck into the bed-in, where she says Lennon immediately took a liking to her and gave her the lyrics himself.

The lyrics will go on auction on July 10 and are expected to sell for close to half of a million dollars

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Yoko Ono can’t forgive but she has no problem telling everybody else to.

Beatle John Lennon was murdered 26 years ago on Dec. 8, and Ono now wants the anniversary of her husband’s death to become a worldwide day of forgiveness.

Taking out full-page newspaper advertisements, Ono said, “Every year, let’s make December 8 the day to ask for forgiveness from those who suffered the insufferable

“To the people who have also lost loved ones without cause: forgive us for having been unable to stop the tragedy,” she continued.

Ono went on to thank well-wishers who write her every year on the anniversary of Lennon’sdeath but goes on to say that “As the widow of one who was killed by an act of violence, I don’t know if I am ready yet to forgive the one who pulled the trigger.

“I am sure all victims of violent crimes feel as I do. But healing is what is urgently needed now in the world.”

Obsessed Beatles fan Mark Chapman shot and killed Lennon, 40, outside his apartment in New York in 1980. Chapman is currently serving time in prison.

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The Cure, Snow Patrol and the Postal Service are just some of the artists who will cover John Lennon tunes for ?Make Some Noise,? Amnesty International?s global project for human rights awareness.

Avril Lavigne and the Black Eyed Peas will also record songs by Lennon to raise funds for the organization.

The first four tracks will be released on Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day. The Cure?s rendition of ?Love,? Snow Patrol?s “Isolation,” the Postal Service’s “Grow Old With Me” and the Black Eyed Peas? “Power to the People” will be available for download at amnesty.org.

Lavigne?s cover and other songs will be released next year, said the human rights group Thursday.

A compilation album will also be released in 2006.

The campaign aims to ?bring an awareness of human rights to a new generation,? said Amnesty International secretary-general Irene Khan, according to MSNBC.

?After all, human rights are what make music possible ? we wouldn?t be able to create music, listen to it or dance to it without freedom of speech, expression and association,? Khan said.

Dec. 8 will mark the 25th anniversary of Lennon?s death. His widow, Yoko Ono, donated the rights to his solo songbook to Amnesty International in 2003.

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