Zia Records

Today’s journey to Zia Records made me realize how upsettingly long it’s been since I last visited! This afternoon, I made my way over to their North Phoenix location, just off Thunderbird and the 17. The independent chain has grown to EIGHT locations across Phoenix, Tucson, and Las Vegas.

Looking for nothing in particular, I was excited to go back to one of the first record stores I remember visiting; it still has the same record store smell I remember! Back when I was still collecting CDs, this place was a GOLD MINE. They always had some random album I was looking for, helping me build my collection relatively quickly. When I got a record player for my 14th birthday, I stopped in with my family and bought Born To Die by Lana Del Rey. Since then, I’ve purchased countless albums from Zia, but none as exciting or memorable.

With Record Store Day Black Friday rapidly approaching, I wanted to share this great local place! By way of background, RSD Black Friday is an event at participating independent record store, where they get limited editions of albums that are (usually) only pressed once. This year, I’m eyeing ROLE MODEL’s Kansas Anymore, but who knows what I might pick up! RSD is such a fun way to meet new people and learn about the artists releasing special editions of their albums, Zia would be a great spot to get in on the action! The nature of my project is to highlight local businesses, and RSD Black Friday is a great event that directs shopping to these indie record stores, rather than retail giants.

I think I undersell Zia a bit, because it’s much more than a record store. Among their aisles and aisles of vinyl records and CDs, one will find DVDs, (comic) books, memorabilia, t-shirts and SO much more! You could spend hours at this place searching for your favorite media in various formats. This Arizona staple HAS to be added to your list, they have an unbeatable selection and an amazing team!