Ok, so Karen O of the Yeah Yeah, Yeahs, wrote the musical songs for “Where The Wild Things Are,” and Carter Burwell (“Adaptation,” “Being John Malkovich”) wrote the score. Did they work together? It doesn’t seem to be the case (via Burwell’s site), “Karen O has already written songs and other pieces of music for the film. I recorded the score in early April (and continue to tweak it) and the film is scheduled for release in October 2009.”
As we’ve already noted, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman had an all-star cast of musicians helping her out including, members of the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, Jonze’s brother, producer Squeak-E Clean, Bradford Cox of Deerhunter, YYYs/Folk Implosion collaborator Imaad Wasif and Jack Lawrence of The Raconteurs and Dead Weather.
But don’t think she just pulled in the high-powered guns to write the music for her. In an Onion A/V Club interview Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox extolled her talents and said she has a career outside just singing if she wants it. He also notes that the director, Spike Jonze, who is O’s ex-paramour was part of the musical process as well.
“Spike was very involved. He came out to all of the sessions and talked about what he was looking for. He gave us a lot of visual cues and much of the music was modeled off of that. Karen was an amazing leader. She has a very bright future as a producer or arranger. Just watching her work on this stuff—she’s very talented. We made some interesting and strange music. Well, it’s not that strange, it’s just definitely not in character. You won’t hear it and say, “Oh, I can hear the Deerhunter sound in this,” or, “I can hear Yeah Yeah Yeahs.”
We’ve already heard some of the “Where The Wild Things Are” score and we can’t wait to hear more; what we heard sounded fantastic. ‘WTWTA’ hits theaters on October 16. [Decider] Cox’s Deerhunter is great, but sometimes we think we love his more ethereal and atmospheric side-project Atlas Sound better. Hopefully he brings that spirit to ‘Wild Things.’ We particularly like this track and included some other Atlas Sound tracks on our Spike Jonze mix.
Oh and according to an Wayne Coyne interview with Pedestrian [via /Film], The Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize” might grace the next ‘Wild Things Are’ trailer. Apparently Jonze is trying out a number of songs for the next iteration and the inspirational Lips song might be one of the tracks used. We can see that, it’ll provide some cinematic ooomph and it’ll probably work for mainstream audiences, but is this movie still being aimed at the young 20-something hipster crowd? What about the kids and the adults who are going to take them?
Oh, and lastly. Don’t live in North America and want to see ‘Wild Things’? Jonze’s We Love You So arts and culture blog have posted the tentative international release dates for the film. If this schedule sticks, those in Korea and France will be able to see the film two days earlier than the rest of the world on October 14. People in Australia for example (where the film was shot), will have to wait for December 3. Click on the image for a larger version.