A to Z Media

📢 HOT OFF THE PRESS: tips and inspiration for all things physical media and merch. Rob Simonsen from our PDX office is here to explain what a CAD (Computer-Aided Design) is. Finally! We know you've all been waiting. While we have hundreds of ready-to-go packaging options, when you need something custom, you need a CAD. This is an important step in visualizing the finished product and ensuring the design matches your concept. Have you worked with a CAD before? 👀

We've partnered with Tiny Vinyl to bring their iconic 4-inch records to our product lineup. Now your biggest fans can keep you in their pocket or tote bag all day long, ready to play their favorite song at any moment. Starting at 500 units and up. The Tiny Details: 🎵 Playability: Tiny Vinyl plays at 33 1/3 RPM on standard manual turntables. ⏳ Capacity: One song per side, with 4 minutes of content on each side. 🌈 Customization: Choose from over 25 color options. ♻️ Eco-Friendly: Made from 100% bio-attributed vinyl. 📄 Packaging: Full-color gatefold jacket and inner sleeve. For more info, reach out to your sales rep or hit the link in the comments below!

A huge loss today. Dolly Parton touched the lives of countless people, including ours. Condolences to her family, friends, and team. We've had the honor of pressing many of Dolly's classic albums, as well as merch, including the Listen To More Dolly Parton socks, handkerchiefs, and slipmats. Thank you for the music, Dolly! We'll be spinning your music all day and forever.

An Official Charts Number One for Phoebe Bridgers and a pretty special moment for everyone involved in 'Lost Weekend'. Rough Trade has championed Phoebe since 2017, so it’s been incredibly rewarding to work alongside Secretly Group to bring this album to life across our stores and beyond these past 7 days. From exclusive vinyl variants and midnight listening parties to our Photobooth Series LP and two intimate, no-phone performances at London’s Union Chapel, we’ve seen an incredible response from fans. Globally, we've now sold more than 10,000 copies of 'Lost Weekend', making it the second best-selling album in Rough Trade history. But numbers only tell part of the story. Seeing people come out in their hundreds to listen together, experience these songs live and buy the album on a physical format has been a brilliant reminder of the appetite that exists for meaningful record store experiences. Congratulations to Phoebe and everyone involved in such an awesome campaign. And thank you to every fan who showed up and supported the record. This is what it’s all about.

It was an honor to work with our friends at the Numero Group on this simply incredible live recording of punk legends Hüsker Dü. "Hüsker Dü. Live. 1985. Need we say more? Witness the transcendent Minneapolis punk trio tearing into the most incendiary year of its existence, captured live on stage at First Avenue in perhaps the highest fidelity recordings of the band’s lauded SST era." This 4xLP boxset features a 36-page softcover book, 12" case-wrapped gatefold jackets, and a custom rigid slipcase, all on deluxe, uncoated stock with custom Pantone colors. While the black vinyl in the video is currently sold out, you can grab the new white vinyl pressing from the Numero Group! #vinylrecords #boxset #physicalmedia

📢 HOT OFF THE PRESS: tips and inspiration for all things physical media and merch. Nicholas Branda from our PDX office breaks down the physical proof options available at A to Z. While not always necessary, physical proofs are the best way to ensure complete accuracy in your final product, especially when color is involved. Thanks, Nick! Here are the options: 🖨️ Hard Copy Proof These are printed using the same color profile as the production presses. 🖨️ Press Calibrated Proof The most accurate proof available on an inkjet printer. 🖨️ Press Sheet Proof This is printed on the actual production presses and is a 1-to-1 match of how the final product will look. Has getting a press proof ever come in handy for you? Drop your experience in the comments ✍️

Made for our friends at Rhymesayers Entertainment, Mos Def's The Ecstatic (Deluxe Edition) features an anti-scratch matte laminated cover, housed in a red plastic slipcase with matte euro-sleeves and a swinging 7" pocket. Not only that, but the LPs (on classic black vinyl) and 7" (on translucent red vinyl) are housed in the hardcover book itself. We love working on packages that mix formats like this release. ⤵️ Here's the breakdown from Rhymesayers: Originally released in June 2009, The Ecstatic stands as a defining artistic statement from Mos Def (now known as yasiin bey) — a richly textured return to form that reaffirmed his status as one of hip-hop's most adventurous and intellectually engaged voices. Arriving a decade after his celebrated debutBlack on Both Sides, the album was widely regarded as his strongest work in years, earning near-universal praise for its lyrical breadth, eclectic production, and thematic ambition. Musically, The Ecstatic weaves a global sonic tapestry shaped by an array of forward-thinking producers including Madlib, J Dilla, Oh No, Preservation, Mr. Flash, Chad Hugo (of The Neptunes), and Georgia Anne Muldrow. The resulting soundscape is both rooted in hip-hop tradition and unbound by genre, integrating elements of jazz, soul, West-Asian and North-African inflection, and experimental sample work. Tracks like "Supermagic" and "Twilite Speedball" establish a vibrant, restless energy that mirrors the album's expansive creative scope. Lyrically, yasiin bey traverses personal, political, and philosophical terrain with characteristic incisiveness, confronting social inequality, Western imperialism, and questions of cultural identity with poetic urgency. Embracing risk and complexity rather than nostalgia, The Ecstatic remains a mature, deeply felt body of work whose ambition, depth, and enduring resonance have solidified its place as a standout entry in yasiin bey (FKA Mos Def)’s catalog and in modern hip-hop history.

Scott Pollack recently visited the incredible Art of Noise exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in NYC. A true highlight is HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3, which features a large-scale, handmade audio system by multidisciplinary artist Devon Turnbull. The show ends this weekend, so if you're in NYC, go check it out! Swipe for photos. ➡️ 💥💥💥 "Art of Noise shows how design shapes the way we experience music—how and where we listen to it, how it’s communicated visually, and what we choose to hear. For many people, these design choices feel like a part of the music itself; they become a key part of how we remember and understand sound in a multisensory way—through our ears, our eyes, and our sense of touch. Organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and adapted to the history of the New York music scene for its East Coast presentation, Art of Noise presents hundreds of works that have shaped our relationship to music over the past century. From concert posters to record albums, phonographs to digital music players, handheld radios to sound systems, the exhibition demonstrates how our experiences are built by both the sounds we hear and the objects that help illustrate or activate them, whether through color and composition or through form, material, and mechanics."