In the modern world, exposing music is no longer just about playing shows and getting on the radio. It’s becoming more and more apparent that, in order to increase awareness of their music, artists are far less hesitant about using advertisements to sell themselves (and the products they’re spruiking) than they ever have been before.

It’s certainly the case that the awareness of an artist’s music can be exponentially increased as a result. Swedish folk troubadour Jose Gonzalez has certainly found that to be the case, with his cover of the Knife’s “Heartbeats” from 2003’s debut album Veneer appearing on Sony’s impressive Bravia commercials, as thousands coloured balls bounce down the streets of San Francisco.

“My main label which licenses to different labels is run by two guys that I know pretty well and they always ask me before making any big decisions. There’s an amount of people that have gotten to know the music,” he says of the end result of licensing to the ad. “It’s probably the main reason why I recently sold platinum in the UK. I think that wouldn’t have been possible without it.”

While ‘selling out’ is anathema to many artists, more and more frequency acts are ‘selling in’ to commercials. “I had a lot of thought about it,” he explains of the final decision to license the song, “and I’ve turned down a lot of commercials before. The difference was that this was not so controversial a product. They had already started doing the footage, so that was one of the main reasons – I wouldn’t say yes to such a big commercial otherwise.”

Plus, of course, they offered really good money. And as an independent artist who has licensed the rights to the album for each individual territory, that can’t help but be a priority. Gonzalez has toured Veneer seemingly non-stop for the three years since it’s original release in Sweden, and now has tentative plans to record the follow-up in October, meaning that his sophomore album is unlikely to appear before 2007. That’s a not insignificant gap.

“It’s strange,” he says of the delay between releases, “but I know that it only recently came out in the US, and it’s still yet to come out in a lot of other countries. So there’s no reason why it should feel strange; it can feel strange on a personal level, but you can understand the reasons behind it. As long as it’s new for some people then I’m okay with it.”

This is becoming more and more a regular occurrence – a lot of bands and artists have started licensing their commercials to advertisements, and in turn it’s helped build awareness of their music. Moby was inescapable for a while there, while the Dandy Warhols found “Bohemian Like You” becoming a monster single after it appeared in a series of different advertisements. Elsewhere, Apple has cleverly bracketed new and emerging acts – including Australia’s own Jet and now Wolfmother – with the iPod and iTunes phenomenon.

In each case, what has helped has been that the music has been an integral part of the advertisement, featuring heavily regardless of what product is being shilled. In America, Jose Gonzalez has had songs feature heavily on teen drama The O.C., with two tracks featuring heavily. This in turn is part of the reason why Veneer has been picked up by a bigger label again.

“It’s good,” he says in stuttering English. Yes, very, very good – Jose Gonzalez is able to forge a niche role within the musical community of the world without ever ‘selling out’, but instead ‘selling in’.

Jose Gonzalez plays Splendour in the Grass on Sunday in the Grant McLennan Theatre, from 5.45-6.45pm.