A co-founder of Second Life who claims to neither buy nor listen to new music is going to be Sr. VP of digital efforts at EMI.

He also admits that he “[has] a lot to learn about music” which, I guess, is supposed to head off any ironic, snarky commentary.

Even more: “I’ll be reaching out to many of you for help as I figure out how to build the right team to generate sustained, ongoing innovation around music. (Want to work on these challenges? Let me know!)”

I’d suggest a subscription to Gonze but I can’t help feeling the analogy I used previously still holds. In 1994 Microsoft built up a team of Web crazies to produce IE, IIS, ms-Java, et. al. and you could swear the company had redirected its focus to the WWW. Wall Street bought it and that was all that mattered. Every time some exec mentioned the “I” word, the stock popped another 20%. In the end when the Netscape/AOL/Sun smoke cleared and margins remained high every executive who drank the Internet Kool-Aid was eventually shown the door. Since then the company just got more entrenched in XP and finding ways to milk a client-based solution (even one masquerading as a server) .

So, I’m not going to be snarky, just pessimistic. Is a company the size of EMI really prepared to chew off its own limbs in order to get out of the trap? For all the talk that Microsoft was ready to cannibalize itself during 1994-99 browser war era, having execs (figuratively) conduct investor video conferences in tiger-skin loin clothes and holding spears, at the end of business day, it was just an act.