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Where The Wild Things Are [OST]
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Where The Wild Things Are [OST] Image
Metascore
77

Generally favorable reviews - based on 16 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
7.0

Generally favorable reviews- based on 22 Ratings

  • Summary: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O and several of her musician friends compose the soundtrack to Spike Jonze's adaptation of the children's book, Where The Wild Things Are.

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 16
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 16
  3. Negative: 0 out of 16
  1. Hot Press
    90
    Sublime companion to kiddies’ book adaption from Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman.
  2. Entertainment Weekly
    83
    Where the Wild Things Are, director Spike Jonze's surreal vision of childhood angst, has inspired an equally weird but altogether more joyous work from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman.
  3. Drowned In Sound
    80
    If it is indubitably more soundtrack album than bigshot solo debut, this record certainly provides irrefutable, definitive, official proof of O’s talents as a songwriter in her own right.
  4. Rolling Stone
    70
    O is like a baby sitter who plays kids Joy Division records before lights out: kinda scary, but they'll wake up cooler in the morning.
  5. musicOMH.com
    70
    This soundtrack is a successful exercise in painting pictures with music.
  6. Spin
    70
    She's made a fine, loud career out of channeling childlike abandon, and the rumbling acoustic guitars and schoolyard choruses (featuring the Yeah Yeah Yeahs guys, Deerhunter's Bradford Cox, and the Bird and the Bee's Greg Kurstin, among others) are both joyful and foreboding.
  7. PopMatters
    60
    Where The Wild Things Are has much to offer fans of wide-eyed, unpretentious indie-pop, but I can’t help but wish that sentiment could be applied to the soundtrack as a whole.

See all 16 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 2
  3. Negative: 0 out of 2
  1. jf
    Oct 17, 2009
    10
    This is a flawless soundtrack, and a damn near flawless standalone record. Everything works. And I wish Karen would do a solo project of just This is a flawless soundtrack, and a damn near flawless standalone record. Everything works. And I wish Karen would do a solo project of just acoustic instruments, mostly just guitar or piano. She has such a lovely voice that is so much more emotional in some of these songs than most of her YYYs songs. The showstopping numbers are the least children album-y, "Worried Shoes" and "Hideaway." The former is a cover of a Daniel Johnston song, but Karen does such a tender, beautiful rendition of it that it definitely becomes the best song here. Runner up is the other ballad, "Hideaway," which is actually quite sad lyrically ("My baby is gone..."), but is incredibly beautiful. She has done these crazy antics her whole career, calming down every now and then ("Maps," "Dudley," and "Little Shadow", so about once each record). But this is unprecedented beauty from Karen. The more upbeat less personal songs work great too ("Capsize," "Rumpus," "Animal," and the keening amazing single "All is Love.") The opening and closing "Igloo" and "Sailing Home" (respectively) have the same theme, set to different music, both with her sounding gentle and finally, undeniably inviting. I love this record, and it accompanies the film very well.… Collapse
  2. DarnellS
    Oct 20, 2009
    9
    I don't know what IT is but this puts me THERE, which is a small miracle these days.