One of the things that makes Jamie xx such an impressive DJ is the depth of his crates. Not only do his sets dart seamlessly from grime to house to techno to his own bewitching, impossible-to-genrify brand of club music; he frequently leapfrogs dance music entirely. In a Boiler Room set recorded on a London rooftop last summer, he dropped Durutti Column's 1989 song "Otis", a drum-free wisp of fingerpicked guitars, in between deep house and U.K. funky tracks. At last year's Primavera Sound, he thrilled an overflowing tent with a set of all vintage soul and R&B. It's not the least bit surprising that he has taken to playing Tame Impala's "Let It Happen" in his sets. The song is essentially breakbeat house by way of the Turtles; between its steady, four-to-the-floor pulse and its soaring synth lines, it's just dance music in poncho and bell-bottoms.

Jamie spun the tune at a set in Guadalajara, Mexico not too long ago, and he did it again at Coachella. He wasn't the only one; the BBC Radio 1 DJ Pete Tong reportedly dropped it in his set, as well. Yet Jamie's play prompted an unexpected reaction on Reddit, where a user named SurfTaco asked, "did [Jamie xx] Play Tame Impala's ‘Let It Happen’ (which was played the night before by Tame Impala themselves) in its entirety without changing/remixing anything?" A few lines down, the same user posts, "because i'm pretty sure that's what he did. I mean, i love that song and loved it, but just seemed weird to play another artist's song in its entirety, especially a coachella artist..."

Is it bad form for a DJ to play a song by another artist appearing at the same event?-=-=-=- It is, at least, a reasonable point of debate. It's generally accepted that the opening DJ doesn't play tracks—at least not new, high-profile tracks—by the headliner; better to let them have the honor. (I'm sure there are a million potential exceptions to this rule, but if, for the sake of argument, I got to open for Jamie xx tomorrow, I sure wouldn't go busting out anything from his new album; to do so would be stepping on his toes.)

But when two artists are performing at the same multi-stage festival? If the point of the opening-DJs-shouldn't-play-headlining-DJs'-songs rule is so as not to upstage them, that possibility pretty much goes out the window once two artists are playing different tents—even more so when the songwriting artists have played the day before the other DJ. In this case, Jamie dropping "Let It Happen" looks, more than anything, like an homage; it's a way of saying to the crowd, "Remember how fucking rad Tame Impala's set last night was?"

But the Reddit user went further: It "just seemed weird to play another artist's song in its entirety." That contention jumped out at me, because it underscored what seems to me to be a fundamental misunderstanding about what a DJ does, and should (or should not) do.

Maybe SurfTaco's point of contention is the "in its entirety" bit, but that's a red herring. Yeah, most of the time DJs mix two songs together, but how much depends on a DJ's personal mixing style. Lots of DJs try to keep two records going at almost all times. But others let their tracks play out to almost their full length, and gracefully fade over to the next with little fanfare. In fact, when I interviewed Jamie xx in March, we talked about this very point. He told me, "I've started doing this thing now where if I'm playing last and I want to play a lot of stuff that's obviously not going to mix well together, I just do like a soundsystem, and just play the record." That is, he means, without any overlap with his next selection. "And it really works, because that moment of silence in between [songs] is almost like another part of the mix. People are waiting for the next song. It can grab their attention at the end of the night."