by Heather Phares
Best known as the frontwoman for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Karen O began branching out from the group's incendiary rock soon after its debut album, Fever to Tell, was released in 2003. She loaned her vocals to &Hello Tomorrow,& a 2005 collaboration with producer Squeak E. Clean that provided the soundtrack to a Nike shoe commercial directed by Spike Jonze. In 2008, she debuted the side project Native Korean Rock, which featured a softer, folkier sound that recalled her pre-Yeah Yeah Yeahs music. That year, it was announced that O would provide the soundtrack to Jonze's film adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book Where the Wild Things Are; for the project, she recruited collaborators including composer Carter Burwell, her Yeah Yeah Yeahs bandmates Brian Chase and Nick Zinner, Deerhunter's Bradford Cox, Liars' Aaron Hemphill, and the Raconteurs and Dead Weather's Dean Fertita and Jack Lawrence. The single &All Is Love& appeared in September 2009, with the full soundtrack arriving a couple of weeks ahead of the film's release date.