Karen O had quite a 2009. Last spring her band, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, made a strong return with their third album, It’s Blitz which is now up for a Grammy award for Best Alternative Album. She worked with celebrated composer Carter Burwell on the soundtrack for a little film you might have heard about called “Where The Wild Things Are” which earned its own fair share of acclaim. While Burwell’s contribution has been disqualified for consideration for a Best Score Oscar, despite what some sites have been reporting, Karen O’s songs, “All Is Love” and “Hideaway” are still eligible for Best Original Song nominations (and let’s be clear, though they are co-credited, Burwell wrote the bulk of the score).
Speaking with Variety, Karen O says that while she doesn’t see Karen O & The Kids (the group that included co-writer Imaad Wasif and a children’s choir) working together again, she “definitely plan[s] on working with some of the musicians I worked with in the future. There’s such great chemistry between us, and maybe there is kind of a strange or different version for the group that we assembled.” That said there are discussions about Karen O & The Kids potentially doing some kind of tour. It’s “something we kind of whisper about and talk about wanting to do and kind of aim it for families and kids” Karen O says.
While the film was probably too intense for younger kids, some kind of stage version might translate a lot better for youngsters while keeping the emotional breadth of the songs. And generally speaking, we’re kind of glad that Karen O is getting recognized outside of indie circles for her work in the past year. It’s pretty rare for the usually musty and stodgy Academy membership to acknowledge something that isn’t immediately familiar or relatable, but it speaks to Karen O (and Carter Burwell)’s talents that they created something that captured such unique and indescribable feelings in a child’s life and turned it into something beautiful and memorable.