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The Star Room Boys were born storytellers, each and every one of them. During their heyday in the 1990s and early 2000s, frontman Dave Marr sang about young men nursing broken hearts, drinking way too much, and driving beater cars, and the rest of the band deepened the drama of those sad tales and lent them the grit and humor of everyday life. They weren’t born into country music; instead, they discovered it as young adults and immediately embraced it as an ideal genre for spinning their yarns of twentysomething woe. They brought all of that insight and excitement to their 1999 debut, Why Do Lonely Men and Women Want to Break Each Other’s Hearts?, which presents an idiosyncratic interpretation of cosmic Americana that has made them a cult obsession in their hometown and beyond. “It’s a seminal record of Athens’ legendary music scene,” says the Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood. “It’s one of my all-time favorite albums.”

The cult classic finally gets its vinyl debut. Why Do Lonely Men and Women Want to Break Each Other’s Hearts? arrives on vinyl for the first time ever, alongside a CD reissue, on September 25, 2026. Order here.

Photo by Deb Benanti