It’s a rock and roll kind of week here at sd&if…

Ars Technica: Music executive declaration: “Music 1.0 is dead.”

The statement, made at the Digital Music Forum East, could only have been followed by a unanimous: We have absolutely no idea what that means.

Things get even dodgier when the article uses the following to paraphrase iLike’s CEO’s entire speech: Music 2.0, meet Web 2.0.

That’s the kind of contemporary media-anthropomorphizing-meta-speak that makes the back of your eyeballs itch.

From the article:

Consider the statements that were made today without controversy:

• DRM on purchased music is dead
• A utility pricing model or flat-rate fee for music might be the way to go
• Ad-supported streaming music sites like iMeem are legitimate players
• Indie music accounts for upwards of 30 percent of music sales
• Napster isn’t losing $70 million per quarter (and is breaking even)
• The music business is a bastion of creativity and experimentation

Only a few years ago, none of those statements would have been true, but perhaps none is more striking than the last. Panelists from every sector of the digital media marketplace were in agreement that the major labels, under the pressure of eroding profits, has been forced to become experimental in their business dealings and to do deals that would have been deemed too risky only months before.

Apparently, entering an alternate universe is easy. It’s the living there that gets ya’…