When I started this job eight years ago, young people still bought compact discs. They also recorded their favourite radio shows and mixes on audio cassettes. They bought amplifiers, speakers and dual-cassette players. A fervent music addict could spend upwards of $150 a week on the habit, while most readers, partygoers or consumers spent more like $40 each month.

Nowadays the average young music consumer has access to thousands of artists’ songs at virtually no cost – other than the cost of a personal computer and an Internet connection fee. The result is an IBM shareholder’s dream: Teens the world over take their $40 a month and instead of giving it to the majors, hand it over to the computer industry and Internet providers. When DJs and music freaks follow suit, committing their $150 each week to the manufacturers of laptops, soundcards and external MIDI controllers, the result is a drastically altered socio-musical landscape.

The recession has only crystallized this inescapable logic. For the sake of efficiency, practicality and sheer penny-pinching, consumers already locked into contracts with their Internet providers will inevitably phase out the purchasing of aforementioned music-related valuables when given half the chance. This isn’t an attempt to point an accusatory finger at music consumers or readers – I’d be singling myself out as well.

Fact is, throughout the music industry’s history, many of its greatest artists (Hank Williams, Elvis, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, The Beatles, Prince and now Michael Jackson… for starters) have had serious altercations with labels over a variety of legal and financial issues. Derided by the Big Four (Universal, Sony, EMI and Warner), electronic music has traditionally been associated with independent labels.

Nowadays mainstream artists like Radiohead, DJ Food and MF Doom have the upper hand over the companies that used to control their work and are often proud of it. Using digital distribution to provide access to music and videos independently of major label, radio or TV support, and liberally implementing elements of previously copyrighted material into their work, it’s not that a new generation of artists is unaware of the music industry – it’s just that those artists now choose to eschew it.

When I got this job it was difficult to balance my opinion with the fear that I could become an advertising medium for big record labels. Eight years later we’re entering an era where this worry is fast becoming immaterial, and the future promises to be a growing whirlpool of artistic independence, in all its infinite forms.

12-inch of the week: Adam Beyer’s Something Good to Die For (Mad Eye)