By Ken Taylor

Burn down the disco / Hang the blessed DJ / Because the music they constantly play / It says nothing to me about my life.

"Panic," the Smiths

FORGIVE ME, for the above quote was staring me straight in the face as I opened last week's NME with Morrissey's mug on the cover and his mix CD – melodramatically titled Songs to Save Your Life – stuck on with that rubbery glue-tape substance.

As much as we're suckers for musical romanticism, let's face it: songs just don't save lives. Actually, if the Pope of Mope's legacy has any bearing, a less-than-bulletproof playlist just might result in the taking of lives. When hardly anyone had thought to consider a guy spinning two records consecutively an art form, Morrissey was already telling us that "whatever this guy's trying to do, he sucks!"

Now Morrissey and his ex-bandmates, no doubt in search of a late-career challenge, are giving the selector gig a go themselves. Sure, it's been more than 15 years since Moz (how many nicknames does the guy have?) and crew made the grand declaration, but there's no reason they shouldn't be held to the same standards they set way back when. In fact, with just about every celebrity putting out a mix or taking a shot at DJing, music lovers can definitely sense a bit of panic setting in.

It's no crime for guitar heroes and Hollywood idols – sadly Juliette Lewis and Wesley Snipes have made the bill for gigs around their towns – to try their hands on the decks, but it smacks of just a tad too much adulation. That we should allow rock stars and actors to choose our music for us grants them more responsibility than I'm ready to relinquish. But that's just me. It certainly wasn't the opinion of the hipster-heavy crowd at Popscene's recent eighth-anniversary party, which featured a visit from guest DJs Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke, a.k.a. the Smiths' rhythm section. Nor was it the general consensus of the hundreds who filed into Mezzanine a few weeks back for Live 105's "Big F**king Afterparty," which boasted DJ sets by members of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Rapture, and the Von Bondies.

But what did seem pretty blatant was the predictability with which the celeb spinners chose and mixed their songs. Fans lined up to see the second-fiddlers of the greatest Britpop band of all time, and all they gave us was the Cure, the Stone Roses, and (ahem) the Smiths? At the Live 105 party, I secretly thanked the Rapture's Luke Jenner – who has become quite a regular on the guest-DJ circuit of late – when he helped me win a friendly bet by spinning his band's song "Out of the Races and onto the Tracks." (Admittedly, I was as shocked as my friend upon calling that one moments before it was played, and truthfully it was a toss-up between "Races" and "House of Jealous Lovers," but hey, I was still the one yelling, "Bingo!")

As tragically self-serving as DJing your own music seems, it's actually not a half-bad idea, business-wise. In fact, electronic producer DJs spin their own tracks all the time. If they, and the club in which they're playing, are big enough for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers to give a shit, it works quite favorably for them. DJs play their own song – even an unrecognizable snippet, so common in abstract techno mixes – and they receive royalty payments from ASCAP, which the promoter usually coughs up. Even if the DJ just says he played his own song, he still gets that check, provided there's no official in the crowd with a clipboard.

Such is the case when DJs – those who make a regular living from spinning, like techno and house folks – pull that kind of stuff. It's a trick of the trade, but it's a trade in which they're skilled. And yes, there's some skill to DJing, though you wouldn't know it from catching Fred Schneider of the B-52's on the decks at a recent New York City art opening.

I'm not saying everyone has got to be a flawless mixer with an impeccable sense of what the crowd wants. Still, a little originality and a modicum of effort go a long way. Princess Superstar (a.k.a. Concetta Kirschner) is first and foremost an incredible rapper, but when she dabbles in the DJ thing – as DJs Are Not Rockstars, with partner Alexander Technique, spiritedly mixing up electro, breaks, funk, soul, rock, and live rapping – she strikes me as far less deluded than most non-DJ DJs. And it's hardly surprising she's willing to reveal the bottom line of the whole phenomenon without much prying.

"The thing is, you get paid a hell of a lot more sometimes as a DJ than as a performer after you split it with your band," Kirschner says. "And you don't have to have any skills, just good taste. That's why everyone is doing it." Good taste, of course, is a subjective thing, but that's primarily what it all comes down to: whose taste do we trust and why? And are we so hungry for rock-star drama that we're willing to pay to re-create a casual NYC or Los Angeles club experience with celebs roaming about the room and pretending they want to be there?

If we had any idea just how banal famous people's lives can be, we might not throw ourselves at them with such aching embarrassment. And there's no better opportunity to do so than in the small-club scenarios provided by celebrity DJ sets. However, while building heavily on the already thick cult of personality, the right setting can actually break down that barrier between star and fan, providing ticketed access to the inaccessible and maybe a spot of superficial interaction. This is where the stars must take heed, though. At this distance we can see your flaws, and since we've now grappled with the whole paying-you-to-simply-show-up-and-stand-behind-a-CD-player-and-hit-Play-on-the-same-discs-we've-been-hearing-for-years thing, you just might plummet from the ranks of idol to anyone-can-do-that schmuck.

Celebrity DJ fun facts!

Paris Hilton received the 2004 Best Celebrity DJ Award at DanceStar USA's third annual American Dance Music Awards. She beat out other nonmusicians including Adrien Brody, Rosanna Arquette, and Cameron Douglas (partying son of Michael Douglas). "I like spinning at house parties, and Miami is my favorite party town," DJ Paris eloquently announced – in between two other sentences that began with "I'm so excited" – during her acceptance speech.

Tommy Lee was recently ousted from a Las Vegas club where he was DJing for spinning "lousy music," some of it his own. "The last thing we wanted to do was embarrass the guy," Sean Christie, manager of Light in the Bellagio Hotel, told the Las Vegas Sun. "So we told him to wrap up his set and make a graceful exit. When he refused, we said we would just pull the plug on him, which is what we ended up doing."