Coldplay - Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends
A conceptual change marks this new album. Critics can say what they want, but Chris Martin and Co., with the help of Brian Eno, were adventurous this time around. Sounding strong, epic and full of grandeur as well as artificial and over-produced at times. Coldplay liked silent work and there isn't much of that in this 4th studio record.
It's not one of those albums you want to listen to with small PC speakers. "Lovers in Japan/Reign of love", Martin cultivates the melodies and a lot of them fight the bases. Johnny Buckland's guitar is reminiscent of The Edge's from U2, who also worked with Eno.
Most of the times in which Chris sings along with his piano, he breaks the mold previously set, always of effects and different guitar sounds.
"Yes" pushes a "Kashmir" like sound with oriental strings and a hypnotic sound to it and it changes in the middle to a guitar song with an ethereal voice over the guitars. As drummer Will Champion said in an interview, they didn't hesitate to try anything. The cords also dominate "Viva la Vida" catchy tune, easy to whistle to in which talks about a powerful man who ruled the World and now roams the streets that once belonged to him.
The guitars of "Violet Hill" has an attack you won't hear in any other song, a very well constructed tune and a strong single... You'll have to listen to the album. Coldplay fans have to love it and non-fans too as Coldplay is an everyone's band.

P.S. "Viva la Vida" is a painting which portraits the dead nature of fruits by Mexican legend Frida Kahlo, but the album cover is the painting "Liberty Leading the People" by French romantic painter Eugène Delacroix.

The long awaited final between #1 and #2 in the World ended with the expected result. Spaniard Rafael Nadal won the title for the 4th time defeating the Swiss Roger Federer this Sunday 3x0 sets. The partials were 6/1, 6/3 and 6/0, in 1h49m.
With the title in Paris, besides becoming 1 million euros richer, the man has equalled the Swedish Bjorn Borg, champion between 1978 and 1981. The number 2 in the World doesn't know defeat in the clay Grand Slam, and this year, he didn't lose a single set.
This was the 22 year old's 11th victory over Federer in 17 games, being that 9 of them were on clay courts. And the 3rd one in a Roland Garros final. The previous 2 finals, Nadal won 3x1 sets.

Holder of 12 Grand Slam titles - 5 in Wimbledon, 4 US Opens and 3 Australian Opens - Federer will have to wait another year for a shot at the "Rolanga" title and be the 6th player in history to achieve the career slam, a player who conquers all 4 Grand Slams.

Here ya go boys and girls, TV listings for the Euro '08 start this weekend.
All games are on MST, and are shown on ESPN2 (Comcast channel 36.)
Due to the opening ceremonies and all that, Saturday's games are shown early Sunday morning.

Saturday's games:
Portugal vs Turkey- 12:30am (on Sunday)
Switzerland vs Czech Republic- 2:30 am (on Sunday)

Sunday's games:
Austria vs Croatia- 10am
Germany vs Poland- 12:30pm

Monday's games:
France vs Romania- 10am
Italy vs Netherlands- 12:30pm

I'm off to Seattle for the weekend. Check back on Monday for updates.

Ronaldinho's future at Barca looks bleak. Looks like he might be headed to the premiership. Manchester City has confirmed that they are interested and are actively trying to sign him.
Could be interesting to see Ronaldinho in the premiership.
Full story here.

Italy captain and former Golden Ball winner Fabio Cannavaro will miss the European Championship after injuring his right ankle in the Azzurri's opening training session.

The USMNT take on Spain on Wednesday. Nike Soccer blog has posted up a preview of the game. That can be found here. 

Inter Milan's president, Massimo Moratti, who fired manager Roberto Mancini, and the Portuguese Jose Mourinho, tipped as future club manager, met this past Friday in Paris.

Massimo Moratti, accompanied by other club board members, were with the Portuguese at the restaurant "La Tour d'Argent" according to sports paper La Gazzetta dello Sport, who displayed photos of the two leaving the popular Parisian spot.

Inter is likely to officially announce the Special One's signing early this coming week. The daily news site also stated Mourinho's desire to sell Zlatan in order to sign Drogba. Signs that Inter are trying to keep Ibra-cadabra at all costs might mean that they couldn't reach an agreement...

Inter Milan is ready to fight for Ibrahimovic after Barcelona has made it clear that they're interested in his services. According to this Sunday's edition of the "Gazzetta dello Sport", the Italians are willing to offer €12 million per year for a contract til 2013... Good grief! That's roughly $50,000 a day!!

Making that cash, Zlatan would be the highest paid footballer, topping the big boys Kaka and CR7. Apparently the deal has been agreed by both parties, but no official word will come out before September.

With DBecks as captain, the three lions didn't take notice of the Soca Warriors with goals scored by Gareth Barry('12), and Defoe('16) in the first half making it look like it'd be a massacre. But a slow second half saw them score only one with Defoe again after 4 mins into it.