i am already obsessed with the 'Challengers' score

I came back from my half-Coachella this week, half of a shell of a woman. Post-fest comedowns are brutal, and though none will top Coachella 2018's—in which I found myself crying in the rain outside of a Park Slope Verizon store (which I had just visited because my phone got crushed in a Thee Oh Sees moshpit and I needed a new one) about my career and future—I knew I had to prepare for the worst.

The best way to stave off post-concert blues is to go to the movies. It's an immersive visual and sonic experience, but you can experience it passively, in a recliner, which won't hurt your lower back. Yesterday I went to see Challengers, the sexy tennis movie starring Zendaya, with my friend Dana.

There were plenty of reasons for me to want to watch this movie: I love "it's going to be an Y tú mama también summer" vibes; I like looking at Zendaya; I read the entirety of Infinite Jest to my husband on a podcast over the course of two and a half years; I once went to the U.S. Open and saw a little tennis but mostly drank a like $30 Grey Goose cocktail and saw Joe Jonas and his band DNCE perform. (The zillennial Jonas Brothers fan who I stood next to at that show on Joe: "He looks kinda twisted, right?" Yes, he did.)

The movie: fun. I won't give anything away but it's sweaty. Tennis is a relationship, blah blah blah.

The Challengers SCORE: holy cannoli. I missed, in all of the marketing hullabaloo, that this was a Trent Reznor / Atticus Ross jam. I won't give anything away but it isn't long into the narrative before we get a huge, refreshing blast of...UPTEMPO ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC??? Inadvertently, I started shaking my ass in my seat. I saw Challengers in IMAX at an AMC ("sound you can feel" - Nicole Kidman) and it hit like an IV of Dilaudid...not that I have had an IV of Dilaudid but I've seen someone else get one and boy it looks nice.

The electronic dance music continues throughout the film, soundtracking tennis matches and verbal arguments, and it made the entire movie for me. "Challengers" has a driving bass line and garbled echo-y voices that recall Rüfüs Du Sol's "Underwater." "Pre Signal" is legit ketamine-to-the-face techno. There's some nouveau-trance that kind of reminds me of what John Summit is doing when he plays eight hours in a row at Space in Miami...please don't get mad at me for equating John "how da fuck we feelin' baby?" Summit with the sexiest man in industrial...it's just what it sounds like to my tender ear.

And "Yeah x10" is the second cousin once removed of LCD Soundsystem's legendary "Yeah"—you could say it's a bit of a ripoff but am I ever going to be mad at someone saying "yeah" over and over atop a beat designated for losing your mind on the dance floor? No!! No I am not.

You can listen to a sick version of the soundtrack mixed by Boys Noize, but I advice you to see Challengers in a theater if you can. It's a little long and I actually don't think any of the tennis components make much sense, but that's not what it's about. It's about seeing a tennis game from a tennis ball's eye view....and it's about getting freaky to the score, played in Dolby surround sound. This score makes me think we could have avoided Facebook and the whole Social Network debacle if someone had stuffed some ecstasy down Zuck's gullet. No time to code if you're in the club. Oh my god, when my husband hears these songs, he is going to be livid. I can't wait to see his face!!!!!