I’ve heard a lot of mixed reviews about WILD—some loved it, some hated it, some didn’t make it. I enjoyed the performance, but I can understand being disappointed: Tropical house is not a genre for everyone and isn’t always suited for a concert setting. One particular complaint that has irked me, however, is: “All he did was press play.” This comment is often followed by someone questioning how Social Programming Board justifies paying Kygo WILD headliner money when anyone with Spotify premium could put on the same concert. Criticisms such as these display a fundamental misunderstanding of what performing as a DJ entails, so I want to take a moment to explain what Kygo—and other DJs—do beyond pressing play and why they are worth the money.

Let’s start with beatmatching. Every song has a certain number of beats per minute—referred to as BPM. Intuitively, the higher the BPM, the faster the beat of the song. Between every song, Kygo adjusted the speed of the current track to match the speed of the next track in order to smoothly transition between songs. To get a sense of what a concert would sound like without it, imagine listening to a playlist consisting of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sounds of Silence” (approx. 106 BPM) and Kanye West’s “N—-s in Paris” (140 BPM). Wouldn’t the transition be jarring? Each song Kygo played seemed to meld into the next, indicating that he is reasonably skilled at beatmatching.

Next, we’ll go over equalizing. Everyone probably knows or has heard of “that guy” who buys custom speakers for his car and then turns the bass up so high that all you can hear is white noise and vibration. Equalization makes sure that doesn’t happen. By adjusting the relative levels of bass and treble throughout each song, Kygo optimized their sound quality. Raising the treble to emphasize vocals during the chorus or raising the bass to emphasize the beat are decisions—artistic decisions—that Kygo had to make throughout the concert.

Those are two common technical skills Kygo and other DJs employ, but there are many other factors to keep track of while performing. Looping songs, applying echo and reverb effects and harmonically mixing songs are all skills Kygo could potentially utilize. Even in the most technical sense, DJs are doing more than just pressing play.

Technical skills aside, musical taste is an important factor in hiring a DJ. Not every song Kygo played was his own: In particular, the “Don’t Stop Believin’” and “Bulletproof” remixes aren’t his. He had to choose which songs to play and what order to play them in—decisions that reflect his musical taste. And the fact of the matter is, Kygo’s taste is important and worth paying attention to. When we listen to music, we rarely even put thought into what we are going to play next. Kygo chooses every song with a purpose. Sure, we could hire an unheard-of DJ to play Kygo’s music and the songs might sound the same (assuming Kygo’s aforementioned performance skills are equal to this unheard-of DJ’s, which they are not). But if we did, we wouldn’t experience Kygo’s set list; we would experience the set list of an amateur DJ, or, even worse, songs chosen arbitrarily by someone with no more musical sense than the average person.

An understanding of all that goes into DJing reveals a double standard between electronic dance music (EDM) and more traditional forms of music. The assumption that DJs “just press play” implies that their job could be done by almost anyone with Spotify and musical talent; that there is no difference between a real DJ and a cover. This is clearly not the case. A cover band, like a cover DJ, is not the same as the real thing, and for the same reasons. A cover DJ lacks technical skill the same way a cover band does, and they both lack the artistic, musical sense of those they imitate. That consummate skill and sense, possessed by Kygo and other professional EDM musicians, is why they are worth the money.