You Won't Be Heartbroken About Lauren Watkins Dropping New Music

​On June 21, Music City-born songbird Lauren Watkins drops the needle on The Heartbroken Record, her 17-song, full-length debut. Pre-add / pre-save here.
 
With her Big Loud Records / Songs & Daughters-released entrance, Watkins introduces herself the Nashville way – co-writing the entire project with a stable of the town's finest pens, stringing together the pieces of a bootstraps story with songs that make an impact and a singular-yet-familiar sound.
 
Doused in the influence of outlaw giants like Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, modern mainstays Kacey Musgraves, Miranda Lambert, and album collaborator Sheryl Crow, and Y2K radio kings and queens like Brad Paisley, Sara Evans, and The Chicks, Watkins and diamond-certified producer Joey Moi capture a unique sonic blend that matches her unorthodox take on country, fusing old-school organic twang with a full-bodied 2000s thump and her delicate-but-dangerous undercurrent – all steeped in a rough-around-the-edges brand of femininity. Whether aching or anthemic, each track highlights the messy magic of love and loss; and with sharp, unexpected twists in perspective, she captures the million jagged facets of a broken heart.
 
“I didn't want to just put an album out – I wanted it to be purposeful,” Watkins reflects. “It's the past several years of my life, and that was just so much heartbreak and dramatic girl-feelings, but I think in a really deep and relatable way… and it just needs to get off my chest.”
 
“It's exactly the space in country I thought was missing and wanted to fill,” she continues. “It's sweet and warm, but also gritty and tough at the same time, and that's my favorite thing. I love it.”
 
Today, Watkins begins unraveling the record with “Settling Things,” a soft-spoken portrait of small-town life with straight-to-the point lyricism that showcases “her ability to take a simple enough phrase and load it up with enough poignancy and depth to make you catch your breath" (Holler). Listen here, and watch the visualizer filmed at Patsy Cline's 'Dream Home' in Nashville here.
 
“There were a lot of years where I was running away from doing this; but I ended up asking myself what the point of living through something is if I don't share it with people? If I don't share the things I've learned with the gifts I've been given?” Watkins adds. “At the end of the day, all I want is for people to hear this record and feel seen. I think that's all any of us ever really needs.”