The (Australian) Jagermeister Independent Music Award winners were announced on Friday night at Melbourne's Forum. In a relaxed ceremony that was beset by sound problems, including an aborted performance by British India thanks to amp troubles, the night saw Dan Sultan and Cloud Control being crowned the main winners. Each took home multiple awards, including the latter for major prize Best Independent Album, for Bliss Release.

Here's the thing: Cloud Control are on Ivy League records. Ivy League Records are distributed by Universal Music Australia. The same Universal family that's considered "the largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry." In fact as we speak, Cloud Control's album Bliss Release is available to be purchased on Universal Australia's main online presence, getmusic.com.au (band profile here). Furthermore, in 2006 Ivy League entered into an "equity agreement" with Michael Gudinski, his Liberation label and the Mushroom Companies. Liberation is of course the home to both Little Red and Kasey Chambers, fellow winners at this year's AIR Awards; the former walked away with Best Independent Single or EP for 'Rock it' while the latter won Best Independent Country Album for Lost Magic Blues. Liberation is also distributed by Universal Music, and both albums can also be bought now on Universal's getmusic.com.au.

Now the AIR's definition of the term independent, is when "the title is released on an independent label/or, self released; and where it is either distributed through an independent distributor or where an independent label uses the services of a major or its subsidiary to distribute the title." Thus, Bliss Release, Lost Magic Blues and 'Rock It' fall into the category of "using the services of a major to distribute the title". Looking past this quirk that itself seems at odds with the concept of "independent" music, curiously, the AIR Awards seemed reluctant to show the major label link.

While other AIR nominees had their distribution services displayed on screen at the awards night, such as Midnight Juggernauts who's album appeared as, 'The Crystal Axis - (Siberia/Inertia)', Cloud Control's' distribution company did not appear. And yet when the ARIA awards were announced last week, this link was clearly demarcated in the nomination list. Cloud Control's ARIA listing reads precisely:

Best Rock Album - Cloud Control - Bliss Release (Ivy League Records/Universal)

Now it's fair to say that the process for calling something "independent" is hard to pin down. Perhaps the most widely shared definition is that of American author Michael Azerrad's, who wrote in his 2001 book on the American indie underground, Our Band Could Be Your Life, that if an artist has any ties with a major label then that artist cannot be called independent. The word itself means, varyingly, "not being contingent on another or something else for its existence or operation". And yet in the music industry such a definition seems laughingly obsolete. Whether through links to subsidiaries, grants, prizes, or flat out donations, the artists that can say they are truly self-sufficient or "independent" are few and far between.

And yet they do exist. Happily; some even with varying degrees of commercial success. So how have we reached the point of this doublethink? Why do we find ourselves celebrating bands with budgets coming from money filtered through the major label system - and/or major industry investors - as the "cream of the crop" of independent music? What disservice are we doing then to those artists that truly are independent? And, on a base level, why do we find ourselves with a commercial radio presenter hosting the independent music awards, (not to mention one happily pouring scorn on the best independent music site in Australia) thanks to a commercial radio station and a booze brand?

It's easy in our small industry to gloss over such niggles and celebrate the wider notion; that Australia creates some great, world class music, whatever the journey. It does, and some of it is represented and celebrated in the AIR Awards. Which require sponsors to survive. Fine. But if we're to stand up and celebrate the actual process - in this case, an award engineered to specifically celebrate artistic autonomy ("You won’t find music from majors here, just the cream of the crop of Australia's diverse and thriving independent music sector") then we need to believe in the strength of that body's convictions. To not have it blur the lines, to not acquiesce to the popular vote, and to not have the commercial interpretation of the term, infiltrating the very thing that supposedly sets the sector - and everything it should stand for - apart.

Follow @marcusthevine