A sentiment that may pass for an endangered species: I feel sorry for DJs. In the era of the "multi-hyphenate"—the first and last time you'll see a shocker like that in this newsletter—DJs are moonlighting to get ahead. Getting a dance floor going, turning out bangers—what once amounted to a career is now minimum viable product. So the side hustles proliferate: podcasting, visual art, film scores, graphic design, writing (back off), therapy, kebabs, and—brace position!—"content creation."

In the spirit of empathy, I’ve enlisted a few of my favourite writers—AKA the ones who filed in response to my pleading emails—to cover for the pros. Seven scribes, plus me, have chosen an emergency track—something they'd be willing to put their fists through some glass for—if a make-believe gig was going south, which, given our self-doubting nature, it invariably would. But as far as I can tell from their selections, you’d be in good hands, inexpert (and bloody) though they may be.

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Tom Lea, co-host of No Tags and ex-editor of FACT

As someone who spent my twenties DJing at a fairly ropey but always fun bar in Camden every Friday night, I know that the best DJs have spent a good chunk of their 10,000 hours playing to unforgiving bar crowds who’ll vote with their feet the second you play a dud. You’ll learn more about reading rooms and instinctive DJing in those spots than you ever will smashing out techno at fabric. Anyway, this is all to say that Justin Timberlake’s "Señorita" has never failed me in my life—for extra garnish, loop the acapella call-and-response section and slam in the intro to Missy Elliott’s "Work It" underneath. Works every time. When it comes to "cool" DJ gigs, the closest thing I’ve known is the late-2000s bootleg of Lighter’s "Skanker" and Masters at Work’s "Work." If this doesn’t save a dance floor then it’s simply not worth saving I’m afraid.

How I'd describe my DJing, when it's going well: I'd love to say something about daring blends of styles and genre, but the older I get the more I've realised there's a very precise correlation between the amount of mid-'00s Karizma records I play and how well my sets go—so let's just say it sounds like that.

• Subscribe to Tom’s Local Action newsletter here, and listen to a DJ set

Max Pearl, writer at the Guardian, New York Magazine and the Baffler

I've mostly stopped DJing clubs, but I'm always down to play friends' weddings—because I love them, yes, but also because I can't bear watching some rental DJ do the usual crowd-pleasers. Over the years, I’ve compiled about seven hours of songs that won't scare grandma but also won't make me groan, and Earth, Wind & Fire’s "Brazilian Rhyme (Danny Krivit Edit)" is the ultimate multi-generational banger. It’s got this smoldering intro that can mix out of anything, which makes it perfect for reviving the mood.

How I’d describe my DJing, when it’s going well: Ideally shirts are being taken off and waved in the air. Or if it’s a wedding, at least all the way unbuttoned.

• Read Max's newsletter, Separator, and listen to a DJ set

Ed Caesar, staff writer at the New Yorker

"Enjoy," by Iron Curtis & Johannes Albert. The tune has this echoey repetition of the single, titular word over drums, and amid a swelling ocean of arpeggio and gorgeous organ. Six years ago, at about 3 AM in a dark and overcrowded room at DC-10, in Ibiza, Mano Le Tough played "Enjoy" in the middle of one of the best sets I've ever heard. The roof nearly came off. Right time, right place, right tune, and now, the right memory. There are in our existence spots of time, as Wordsworth said. This was one such spot. I only have to hear the opening notes and I'm happy.

How I'd describe my DJing, when it's going well: My DJing is inexpert, heartfelt, and relies too heavily on the loop function.

• Read Ed's most recent piece, for Esquire, here

Philip Sherburne, editor at Pitchfork

Forgive me if my pick seems too glaringly obvious, but my no-fail get-out-of-jail-free card is "DJ Safety Track," released by Diego Herrera under his Suzanne Kraft alias in 2016. I can only imagine it earned the on-the-nose title after getting the American-born DJ out of more than a few holes of his own. A bumpy, low-slung house track with a low end like a blown speaker cone and a jaunty M1 organ line, it really does have an uncanny ability to turn around the energy of a flagging set. Curiously, it’s not particularly energetic; the tape-warped chords and FM chimes are balmily Balearic, and the drums do the bare minimum to sketch out the groove. But I’ve dropped it multiple times when I just couldn’t figure out where I wanted a set to go, and every time it’s pulled the dance floor under its heads-down spell. I suspect a lot of the magic has to do with its syncopated bass drum, which kicks like a mule; even though the rest of the track is fairly laid back, that muscular punch supplies the necessary oomph to start building the set back up from there. And as someone who tends to go blank when it comes to remembering song titles in the thick of the mix, "DJ Safety Track" is so self-evident, it might as well be a little red hammer ensconced behind glass.

How I'd describe my DJing, when it's going well: A little bit punchy, a little bit moody, and a little bit trippy, with an eye on the long game—but also not above the occasional cheeky serotonin hit.

• Read Philip's newsletter, Futurism Restated, and listen to his most recent DJ set

Holly Dicker, journalist and author of Dance Or Die: A History Of Hardcore

I learnt to mix during one of those lull periods in life. I mixed UKG, performing my first public set on the steps of my mate’s house as part of the million street parties kicking off in Britain for the royal wedding in 2011. Five days later I landed in Berlin, beginning my career in music, and never thought about DJing again. Fast-forward a decade to a world in crisis. I’m now in Rotterdam, and mixing again, just to get through this. I return to UKG, pairing the hits of my teenage youth to the uni bass music and Berlin bunker techno that paved my raving route to Gabberland. I open my first (and last) proper club set—at Worm in between lockdowns—with Daniel Bedingfield’s "Gotta Get Thru This" because, fuck, I was terrified. But I was gonna get through this. Four painful years of writing Dance Or Die followed, where I gave up everything else: friends, family, music, people. I went through the lowest lows. But then I would blast this tune on YouTube, and suddenly I could get through this.

How I'd describe my DJing, when it's going well: It clangs, but it also bangs.

• Buy Holly's new book, Dance Or Die: A History of Hardcore, and listen to a recent DJ set here

Chal Ravens, co-host of No Tags and head of audio at Novara

I can't say I've needed to rescue too many sets—my mates know my taste and seem to like it, and among a cluster of DJ friends who specialise in the stranger ends of dub, disco and Balearica, I tend to bring the faster, tuffer, sort of 'nuum selections. If anything, I'm too ready to give people what they want: more garage classics than strictly necessary, too many songs per hour, and an alter ego set consisting of half-forgotten Y2K radio hits. But in a party situation where the dancers know your records, I'd say the way to rescue a sagging crowd is to stop playing bangers—counterintuitive!—and give the room a breather while digging into the trackier corners of my house crates. Then I'd probably go for something with a bit of "music," as DJ Storm would say—a songlike composition that people probably don't know but that might sweep them away. I'll go for 4Hero's "Hold It Down (Bugz In The Attic Co-operative Remix)," which I heard Scratcha play once and thought, woah, that'll be useful. Big beautiful broken beats for the sweat gang at the front, a soaring singalong chorus, perfectly balanced masc-femme energies—works like a charm.

• Listen and subscribe to No Tags, and read Chal’s recent piece about Art Of Noise’s “Moments In Love” on Resident Advisor

Tom Faber, culture and technology writer at the Financial Times and the New York Times

The track I've been playing recently to save dance floors is the chaotic mash-up track "Funeral" by Sigfrida on the underrated Low Income $quad label. Often when people are leaving the dance floor I'm left wondering whether I should be going harder, cheesier, or just keep ploughing my own furrow and trust they'll return in good time. This track does everything at once, with a switch-up every 30 seconds, rave sirens and piano stabs, bait vocal samples, and a gloriously elastic bassline drop that always gives me shivers. It's pure joy. And you can go anywhere afterwards.

How I'd describe my DJing, when it's going well: One left turn after another.

• Read Tom's work here, including a recent piece about Leigh Bowery for the New York Times

Ray Philp, writer at GQ Magazine, The Economist and The Fence

Years ago I was DJing at a warehouse afterparty in Glasgow; my pal and I were the first DJs people would see coming from a festival called Electric Frog (appalling name for an event). At doors open the dance floor filled up straight away, like that Slam Tent video from T In The Park a lifetime ago. But what really struck terror into our soft hearts was when, not five minutes after, a shirtless man with bulging traps screamed at us to "play some fuckin' tech-nohhh!!!" (He might've been to see Len Faki at the festival, and how the fuck do you compete with that.) We assumed we'd be playing to nobody so I thought I was being very smart by opening with this Reagenz tune: subtle, sophisticated, and as useful then as a silk scarf in a knife fight.

Anyway, we had to go up the gears or get booted off, so we worked our way up to playing "Loneliness" by The Conservatives, and I swear that track—imagine, if you will, an Italo A-side in a North Face puffer—has pulled me out of so many trenches. In more intimate settings I've often played an edit of Juliane Werding's "Grossstadlichter," a kind of heroic German schlager disco track, but you have to mix it with the right thing or it doesn't pop, and I've found that a sparkly Model 500 number will usually do it.

How I'd describe my DJing, when it's going well: Poundland Optimo, half-price sale. (Love you, Keith and Jonnie.)

• Subscribe to The Fence to read a recent piece about Britain's doomsday preppers, and listen to a not-recent DJ set here

The Microplastics Digest

What I’ve been paying attention to these past few months.

LISTENING

• Axis Of Love - Eighth Ray [Emotional Rescue]

• Native Dancer - Wayne Shorter & Milton Nascimiento [Columbia]

• Pick Up The Flow - Model 500 [Metroplex]

• DJ Harvey b2b Andrew Weatherall - RA 1000

• Στoν Eλaιώνa / Ston Elaióna - John Also Bennett [Shelter Press]

• JD Twitch - RA 087

• Message From Home - Pharaoh Sanders [Music On Vinyl]

• Salutes Mix: Optimo - BBC6 Radio

READING

• How music criticism lost its edge - Kelefah Sanneh [New Yorker]

• The sick town of England - Jacob Furedi [New Statesman]

• The man who invented Shoreditch - Will Buckley [The Fence]

• Margaux Blanchard, the journalist who didn’t exist - Jacob Furedi [The Dispatch]

• RFK, Jr., Anthony Fauci, and the revolt against expertise - Daniel Immerwahr [The New Yorker]