Wim Mertens - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• With that same title, the collection of electronic music Café del Mar features in its 5th volume "Close Cover", one of the most melodic and, in a way, classical pieces of the author.
• "Struggle for Pleasure" was directly covered by Belgian dance music project Minimalistix in 2000 and reached the Top 40 in the charts in many European countries including the United Kingdom, Belgium and the Netherlands. The group also did a successful cover of, again, "Close Cover".
• A cover appeared in 2001 on Gatecrasher Digital. Elastica presents Jesus Elices 'Maximizing the Audience'.
• The James Bond novel High Time to Kill (Raymond Benson, 1999) contains a passing reference to the music of Wim Mertens, in which characters in the novel comment on the music playing in a cafe. Benson, the fourth official James Bond novelist, is a fan of Mertens' music. The reference is somewhat ironic given the interest in James Bond culture shown by Michel Duval, the founder of Les Disques du Crépuscule.
• "Struggle for Pleasure" also inspired one of the most influential Electronic dance music tracks - Energy 52's trance music project called "Café Del Mar", firstly released on Eye Q Records in 1993. It became a successful hit in 1997 with Three 'n One remix, and Nalin & Kane remixes in 1998. In April 2011, the song was voted number one in Pete Tong's Top 20 Dance Tracks of the last 20 years.