Create Your Summer Soundtrack

Lauren Nagel, Chief Creative Officer

“I had a part of the [musical] score that’s for the finale… And I realize now it's a slightly psychotic behavior, perhaps, but I got into cold-plunging…

And I would sit in the dark in this cold plunge, listening to this music like full blare on repeat over and over again. And then whilst we were filming that scene, James [Gunn, director] had that playing through the speakers on the set. I’d listened to it so many times thinking about that moment. Being in cold water is kind of a…"

“Tortuous situation.”

“Yeah somewhat. But then you’re kind of mind over matter. You’re kind of putting your body through some sort of wall. So there’s a bit of that and then being put into the filming scenario and having the same thing.”

– Nicholas Hoult, on prepping for Superman on Armchair Expert

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So even 2025 Lex Luther knows that music has an explicit connection to memory.

But what’s most interesting to me about this practice is its intentionality – using music to, in this case, put Hoult back in the mental and physiological state of overcoming extreme discomfort. The real, lived memory of perseverance.

Maybe an extreme example – and lawd knows if one more white guy on a podcast talks about cold-plunging I might have to spork my eyes out – but if we know the power of sound in creating and activating memory, we can use this power intentionally.

Last Spring in Paris with my best friend, we listened to the same five songs every morning to imprint the memory – like taking a sonic photograph of the sunrise hitting those epic croissants. Do I have the actual photos? Sure. But those five songs, in that order, will forever put me back in that Marais apartment more viscerally than any IG post.

So buds, what summer soundtrack do you want to intentionally create? What songs are on it? What kind of emotional imprint do you want to capture - Lex Luther style?