I don't like the term 'indie". It is a redundant term, that never really meant anything anyway. Even when we had the record labels independant of the major distribution companies, the charts they produced said nothing about the supposed genre. As I recall, when The Smiths vacated the number one slot, the likes of Kylie & Jason or Erasure kept it warm. Strange bedfellows indeed!
Indeed! In my opinion the origins of the term "indie" comes from the independent UK record labels of the 80's which weren't a part of/funded by
big labels like EMI, Warners, Virgin, etc.
There is a great book about Rough Trade Records by Rob Young. After reading that book I started to realise how complicated it is to run a record label and how complicated the issues are around copyright, distribution and finance.
These days "indie" does not mean anything really - labels like "Transgressive" and "Domino" are simply just sub-labels of the big companies.
I actually find it a bit irritating when people say they like indie (or even worse "indy") music.
Just a thought...