Rockin' the coffee table

Coffee-table books only really work if you have a great idea for the book. Or a great table. Taschen's arthouse erotica produces a titillating respite from reality TV. Global village manuals provide colour if not depth. And iconic musician/artist glamour portfolios can be good if you need some quick style tips. A coffee-table book on DJs is a strange idea, though. The subjects have few of the attributes of the aforementioned.

DJ Fink tells us, in the introduction to Lopez's collection of portraits of the men and women known more for their mixes than magnetism, that "club DJs are the rock stars of the 21st century". That's so 20th century. The fact is that the cult of the superstar DJ is appearing an increasingly bogus concept.

Look at the stricken state of the superclubs. The creative stasis in DJ-produced dance music. The general indifference that meets the scandal of a club DJ leaving a radio DJ for another club DJ. So Lopez's icons are on pretty shaky ground, then. His shots are competent enough though, presenting his subjects, "anybody from tabloid turntablists such as Fatboy Slim and Seb Fontaine to warehouse veterans such as Roy the Roach to musicians who happen to be occasional DJs such as Nitin Sawhney" in an array of standard magazine-style poses. But they are ultimately unaffecting in a tourist brochure type of way. (Jah Shaka, an unforgivable omission, should have had a lavish centre spread.)

Some shots are mannered and styled, some au naturel and some oh-so-mundane. In fact, what hits you harder than last year's slammin' house anthem is the ordinariness of these putative rock stars. Some are actually nondescript. And that's where Lopez's collection falls flat on its seamlessly mixed backside.

There just ain't no charisma on show.

No sepias of Miles Davis suffused in nicotine cool or a Prince pose to make you celebrate or question your sexuality. There are no Bowies or Jaggers to help you get it on in front of the mirror, no Bootsy Collins or Elton Johns to make you shoot your hairdresser.

No, what you have is Judge Jules, straight out of the Mister Byrite school of couture. Alfredo as Gollum in a jacket. And Mixmaster Morris, looking suspiciously like William Hague at the MOBOs. The closest thing we have to rock 'n' roll is an ass 'n' all shot of somebody called Sassy. It is Channel Five soft porn without the ticklingly brain-dead dialogue.

Yet the DJ does speak. Each portrait is accompanied by a pitch-controlled aphorism on the profound issue of why these preachers rock their nocturnal congregations. And what is the sermon?

"Music is my life and my life is music," is one gem. "Dance music and self-image play an important role in who I am," is another. Or, most enlighteningly, there's "I love music". Suddenly the outdated rock gospel of "Get rich, get high, get laid" takes on a sanctified lyricism by default. (At least it is honest). Music lovers deserve better than the scriptures and iconography Lopez has assembled here. And so do their coffee tables.