Thao & the Get Down Stay Down is the kind of band that forces your body to move, even when you are listening to heartbreak and devastating loss and grief and death.

Example: try not to tap your toes to this funky single, “Nobody Dies,” from their new album A Man Alive. In it, a woman remembers watching her father leave as a girl. “You made a cruel kid, come look what you did.” But the buoyant rhythm of the bass, guitar, and drums gives the song a gutsy, bright sound at odds with the lyrics, which lament the force of human denial.
We act like nobody dies
You act like nobody dies
I act like nobody dies
We act like nobody dies.
This is my favorite kind of juxtaposition: an upbeat sound and devastating poetry. Try not to dance!