Record Breakers

This place has a nice selection of LPs. They do a nice job of presenting a wider selection in popular genres, such as pop, classic rock, and jazz. They also have a decent selection of r and b, and country, despite what other reviews have suggested. In addition, they also have a nice selection of classical music.
Reckless, Dave’s, and Dusty Groove do a better job in similar areas than they do here, so I’ve put them lower in the list. But they do try, so I’m willing to give them a good, solid, better than average rating, and now, with the Jazz Record Mart gone, they’ve risen to #5 in my overall list.

The Selection here is fantastic with reasonable prices. The staff is super cool and helpful. The vibe of the venue/​bar/​record store is enticing and I could spend a while just exploring the place. They will order anything for you if they don’t carry it.

Tops. Massive selection. New & Used. If you’re looking for something obscure, you’re likely to find it here. Also their staff is friendly and inclusive. I one time got free tickets to a Primus show from one of the cashiers for being a frequent customer. That’s definitely a way to keep customers coming back!
Additionally, they’ve got lots of far out artists in stock. Harry Partch? Xiu Xiu? Scott Walker? The Residents? Those types of artists are pretty normal at Record Breakers. So tempting to just blow tons of dough here.

Well, goodbye to the glory days of hoffman estates. I enjoyed that location when I was a teen. Warning to Dave’s records: I just picked up a Nilsson vinyl for 4.99 at breakers. I probably should have checked the vinyl out before purchasing (I usually do… figured I shouldn’t bother because… well what kind of condition should I be expecting for 4.99?) Well… it’s not the condition that bothered me… it was actually the price itself. So yes… Dave’s records. Underneath the breakers price tag was the carelessly still there dave’s records price tag. Dave’s sold the same record for 99 cents. Where does breakers get off on charging 4 dollars more? Also, none of your pretentious employees (some of whom I recognized from the burbs) acknowledged my existence as a customer in the slightest bit. Thanks, you greedy, holier-​than-​thou elitists! Oh, yeah. Terrific neighborhood. You fit right in. I’m sure your neighbors have taken kindly to your hipster nonsense.
(PS. Screaming and pontificating ironically about Rebecca Black shouldn’t be a thing people still do…)

I like the selection. At times its hit or miss to be honest. Their prices are pretty significantly higher than many of the surrounding record stores in Chicago, Its the location thats the buzzkill. I live in South Wicker Park/​Ukranian Village and its a pretty big pain in the butt to get out there, much less trade in a huge box of records when you are taking public transit (when they only accept trade-​ins on certain days now) Some of the staff come of as being pretty pretentious and snobby, All in all breakers isn’t the worst place but it isn’t the best. Honestly I really miss it when it was in Hoffman Estates. The prices still sucked but it was less snobby.

I am promising myself I will indulge more in my rock music just because they have almost every kind of music you can think of. Every genre.

I grew up 10min away from the old location which was so much better! It was a bigger space and more selection. Everything is really tight, and very hot inside, i just wanted to get the hell out of there.

Nice selection of new and used vinyl, Record Breakers hosted a great shindig on Record Store Day 2011. Live bands, free soda, lemonade and they kept the hot dogs coming (thatswhatshesaid?).
The CD boxed sets and collectibles collection is impressive and aptly priced. Huge selection of CDs, but I wouldn’t mind seeing used CDs come down in price. There’s plenty of vinyl selection, whether it be Rock, Jazz, R&B, even saw a generous portion of Classical (with Louisville Symphony Orchestra having a huge selection of «white labels», hey JT!).
Staff is helpful without a hint of Championship Vinyl ‘tude. I can see coming to browse Record Breakers followed with dinner and a show at Reggie’s Music Joynt.

It’s amazing that the place only just moved from its suburban location three years ago. It looks like it’s been there for over 40 years, growing like mold. Upstairs from Reggie’s Rock Club, it has an abundance of t-​shirts, posters and other rock ‘n’ roll paraphernalia that, along with its generous space and slightly musty, weedy smell, gives it a classic record store vibe. For this I award it an extra point, because although there is a ton of space, it’s not used wisely, using out-​of-​date clunky hard plastic cases that are difficult to browse through. The three times I’ve been there, I’d spend nearly an hour searching through, and did not find a single item worth buying. The selection is bad and the prices are high. But it’s a perfect place to escape a bad opening band. I wish all concert venues had one of these! Hopefully they’ll hire a new buyer worth their salt who can prune and shape up their sorry inventory.

I thought when I’ve been to certain music stores in the past (*cough* FYE on new CD pricing, and numerous other independent stores I won’t mention), I thought those were really bad. However, the way they price music here is mostly downright disgusting and unacceptable, especially for used CDs.
Get this: the prices of used CDs here is almost equivalent to FYE’s new CD prices! That is just NOT acceptable, and never will be in my book. Best thing to do with this store is to browse here to get some ideas for albums you may be missing before or after seeing a Reggie’s show (or if by some random chance you’re nearby after 2pm in this area after this place opens, I dunno for what reason besides coming from Chinatown), and save those purchases for either another store or online.
The little good about this place is that they had a few bargain bins that were acceptable, if not great price-​wise with some hard-​to-​find CD singles and records, the overall selection of both records and CDs is great, and they had a cute talking parrot. But until they fix their prices for used CDs (I fear their record prices are as bad), I would instead suggest first going to Let’s Boogie in Bridgeport before here, sadly.

Overpriced and inconvienently located. That’s pretty much Record Breakers in a nutshell. They have some interesting albums, a lot of imports and I can usually find something I want. The problem is that the cds are $ 15 and up. Also, the vinyl selection is pretty lacking. The main thing I end up buying here are tickets to shows downstairs.

The selection isn’t really that great. The prices are nothing to brag about. I love Reggie’s Rock Club which always brings me into Record Breakers but the only thing I ever end up buying is a ticket to an upcoming show. Still not leaving empty handed but I wouldn’t suggest this place to anyone looking for an album.

I give Record Breakers 5 stars for transporting my husband and I back to the 80’s and 90’s. We felt like kids again browsing their aisles upon aisles of used vinyl. There are so few Vinyl friendly stores left for old folks like us, that it seriously makes me sad. I still love that garage appeal of their layout, the smells associated with old vinyl, and rifling through the stacks looking for forgotten gold. They offer both new and old vinyl, cds, laser discs, posters, t-​shirts, etc. You are never to old to shop for good music. I am ecstatic that they offer tons of old ska, soul, punk, and rock and none of the crap that music aficionados hate that can be found on the air waves today. We found a boxed set of the Flaming Groovies, bonus!

this is more of a «quantity over quality» type of place. the imports and other hard to find things are interesting to look at, but not really worth the prices. they have a lot of kitschy items that no one would consider buying as well. oh, and a used laserdisc section. good luck with that one, record breakers.
i went here for a free show on a saturday afternoon and was pleasantly surprised by the free hot dogs. they were shockingly good. my friend ate 4 of them. i think they have free shows/​hot dogs the first saturday of every month. if you’re hungry and in the area, go for it.

Seems like it will be tough to be profitable on the retail side if Record Breakers is plopped down between highrise apartments, an auto repair place, and the post office on south State street, as trekking down here is really inconvenient. The store inside is pretty large, but it seems to lack any consistency with the big inventory — When I was browsing it seemed like they had every single record I have never heard of but nothing of what I was looking for. I don’t understand the concept of «showcase» items randomly displayed in cases on either side of the store, it just adds to the general overall disorganization. The pet parrot was a great touch, however. They had an excellent used cd section that I wish I had more time to peruse.
Probably not worth the trip unless you are hard up for something new, or you’re seeing a show downstairs.

This place can best be described as a dinosaur. Remember the times before the internet when record stores sold t-​shirts, incense, and Bob Marley tapestries? That is exactly what you can expect here only I don’t see why you’d want to trek down to State and Cermak to buy any of it. The music selection was unimpressive and the used CDs are a bit pricey. Again, I ask how dare they expect me to pay $ 8 to relive my youth with an old ska CD when I can just go steal it online? At least this Record Breakers doesn’t sell Skrewdriver albums anymore. In summary this place is useless. Poor selection, shitty prices, inconvenient location, and it smells like a 14 year old self proclaimed Wiccan’s bedroom. I give it a year before it goes under.

The stories I’ve been told about old record breakers stash finds prompted me to race all my friends through the aisles trying to grab hot wax, however I couldn’t find a single goddamn thing I was willing to throw down for.
I definitely didn’t see any «sketchy» or «racially suspect» records, but if that review was referring to the old behind-​the-​counter selections RB once sacrificed I didn’t see those either sadly.
I think their stock is slow as they just moved in, I will review it again when I visit Reggie’s for a show. I can’t imagine they’d be that hard up for good vinyl upon opening though.

I’ll be honest, this store has straight up one of the most racially suspect selections of music I’ve ever encountered in the city. How do you land a record store less than a block from the projects and you don’t even try to sell to the people in the community you land in? And this isn’t even on some ‘wahh the rap section is small and overpriced’ thing (altho it is), there isn’t even an R&B section in the vinyl (its a part of ‘rock’ and i already own EW&F’s greatest hits, thnx) and don’t even talk to me about the jazz section.
To be fair, the bar has pretty good food.

This record store was a bastion of hard to find music.
When I took classes at Harper during high school, I had to drive past it once a week. It was a constant temptation, luring my insufficiently-​filled wallet into its well-​stocked confines. Luckily, they had a large stock of used cds in addition to the pristine stuff. They also had 2 or 3 cd players with which to test out your potential buy.
They’re moving to the city and opening up a venue to boot, which is awesome for me because now they’ll be closer. but its a sad loss to all the kids in the Northwest Suburbs.