A Man Alive

A Man Alive is the fourth studio album by alternative folk band Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, released on the Ribbon Music label in March 2016. Background The subject matter of the album was inspired by Thao Nguyen's relationship with her estranged father, who "left when I was maybe 11 or 12, my parents split up. And so he kinda just floated away but you never knew when he would come back and you never knew when he would just leave." "This record, you know a lot of that is me releasing whatever I have to and grieving in whatever way, and having a lot of anger and then trying to sort of move forward, to forgive," Nguyen says. "But then a few songs later, I could leave him for dead." Composition The decision to pair personal subject matter with upbeat music was a conscious one, inspired by reactions to the band's live performances. "The most fulfilling parts of our live show, that we love the most and what the crowd seemed to love the most were beat and bass driven. I wanted to move away from chordally based songs, and I wanted to rely more heavily on the beat and the groove. We wanted to pay more tribute to hip-hop influences...Once I realized what this record would be about, then it was definitely a non-negotiable in that it would be fun to perform. You can’t be sad every night without fail."