Some shops may have special hours for RSD, but the other directory information here will remain reliable year-round-as will the map. With that in mind, you might want to bookmark this guide and refer to it whenever you’re out and about and looking for the nearest record store. But even with those omissions, we’ve compiled more shops than you could reasonably visit in one day-especially given the distance between, say, Conservatory Vintage & Vinyl in Flossmoor and Vintage Vinyl in Evanston. Some pop-up shops are deliberately concealing their locations ( No Requests wants you to DM for the address of theirs). We couldn’t reach a few shops, including Let’s Boogie Records & Tapes in Bridgeport, to confirm RSD plans (but Let’s Boogie is definitely still truckin’, as Caporale wrote in this year’s Best of Chicago issue). The following RSD listings aren’t exhaustive, unfortunately. Other new shops since our 2021 guide include Washington Park storefront Miyagi Records and Hegewisch spot Katalyst Coffee Lounge & Music Gallery, which opened in October 2021. After a monthlong goodbye sale, Crain sold his remaining stock to Signal Records, an Avondale shop that former Chicago Research founder Blake Karlson opened last summer. In December, Dave Crain bid adieu to his Lincoln Park vinyl mecca, Dave’s Records, after more than 20 years in business. Chicago Ray Records in Rogers Park shuttered in February 2022 upon the death of its founder, Ray Pate. The Reader most recently published a guide to local record shops in 2021, and at least a couple have closed since then. I collaborated with my colleague Micco Caporale to compile this roundup of almost every Chicago store doing RSD business. I’d rather encourage you to visit Chicago record shops for their own sake. I love a good gimmick, but I’m less inclined than ever to highlight the special RSD releases (you can find a list here). RSD special releases have also contributed to the strain on the handful of remaining vinyl pressing plants, so that these days, independent bands and labels often have to wait about a year for their records. RSD typically entices shoppers by supplying stores with vinyl manufactured specifically for the occasion, but for all the good this commercial holiday has done, it’s also produced some harmful side effects for record stores and the record-selling business.įor almost as long as RSD has existed, for instance, savvy record resellers have stalked shops to flip limited pressings online at outrageous prices. Many of them will participate in this year’s Record Store Day, which falls on Saturday, April 22.

Selling vinyl is still a niche business, but some record shops have found a way to thrive. Of course, that huge number-84 percent of the industry’s total take-doesn’t translate into a living wage for the vast majority of artists who stream their music, but that’s a different story. Physical music sales totaled $1.7 billion last year, according to the RIAA, about 13 percent of streaming’s $13.3 billion in revenue during the same period. Last year, the Recording Industry Association of America reported that in 2022, sales of vinyl records (41 million) outpaced sales of CDs (33 million) for the first time since 1987. Vinyl sales had already been growing for a couple years at that point, and they’ve grown every year since. Streaming wasn’t yet the behemoth business it is today-Spotify also launched in 2008, and it wouldn’t reach the U.S. Record Store Day began 15 years ago as a way to mobilize consumer support for independent brick-and-mortar record stores, which were seen as niche enough to be at risk of extinction from big online retailers. Credit: Kathleen Hinkel for Chicago Reader Best of Chicago 2022: Sports & RecreationĪ customer browses vinyl at the farewell party for Dave’s Records on December 18, 2022.Best of Chicago 2022: Music & Nightlife.🚨PARKING INFO: Overflow parking for our Knoxville location is the parking lot at Berry Highland Memorial … just a couple doors east from us along the same side of Kingston Pike (see map below). We accept all credit cards, Apple Pay, Wild Honey gift cards, and cash. After that, you can buy an extra copy of something, if you’d like. You can buy as many different titles as you like, RSD items are 1-per-title/per customer while there are people waiting in line. If you run out of time shopping, you can rejoin the line and come in again! While the line lasts, we’ll be letting in groups of 15 shoppers at a time for 10 minutes and we have a quick checkout outside.

For example, we’ll have 80 copies of Taylor Swift’s Folklore in Oak Ridge AND another 80 copies at our Kingston Pike shop, too.īoth our locations have long covered sidewalks, so you can stay dry if you’re waiting in line. We’re starting the day at 8am with all the RSD vinyl equally split between our two locations.

Oak park records store