A record shop or record store is an outlet that sells recorded music. Although vinyl records and audio cassettes are no longer sold in the majority of music stores, in favour of compact discs and home video recordings products, people in some countries, like the UK, still use the term "record shop", in conjunction with "CD shop" or "music shop".

Originally record shops were privately run and independent businesses, meaning that prices could differ greatly from town to town, store to store. Today music shops are largely chain owned and thus prices are fairly similar regardless of the wealth of the town. In the United Kingdom the national chain style of selling records and tapes took off with Our Price, itself originally a small independent business founded in the early 1970s that expanded nationwide.

Competition (like any major business) is fierce, proven by the closure of Our Price in 2004 after several rival chains emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, including HMV, Virgin Megastore and Music and Video Club. Around the world, the traditional record stores (chain or independent) are currently suffering from mail order (most notably on the Internet), as well as supermarkets and box stores selling recorded music at prices way below the recommended dealer price as a loss leader, thus devaluing the product to a damaging degree, and digital downloads.

Carl Craig is a Detroit-based producer of techno music, and is considered to be one of the most important names in the Detroit second generation of techno producers and DJs. According to an article about Craig, "Of this group, Craig was often recognised as being the most artful and the most willing to engage the rapidly growing shape of techno outside Detroit." Carl Craig has approached techno using inspiration from a wide range of musical genres, including jazz and soul.

Carl Craig has released many successful albums under a large number of aliases, such as BFC, Psyche, Paperclip People, 69, Designer Music and Innerzone Orchestra. He also had a hugely successful collaboration album with NYDJ Patrick Picasso. Using one alias, Innerzone Orchestra, he released perhaps his best-known track "Bug in The Bassbin" in 1992, a track that many regard as being a key influence in the then evolving sound of drum and bass.

Carl Craig has also created his own record label called Planet E Communications, which apart from his own work, has released records by well known techno and house artists like Kevin Saunderson, Alton Miller and Moodymann.

Ernest Dale Tubb (February 9, 1914 – September 6, 1984), nicknamed the Texas Troubadour, was an American singer and songwriter and one of the pioneers of country music. His biggest career hit song, "Walking the Floor Over You" (1941), marked the rise of the honky tonk style of music. In 1948, he was the first singer to record a hit version of "Blue Christmas", a song more commonly associated with Elvis Presley and his mid-1950s version. Another well-known Tubb hit was "Waltz Across Texas" (1965), which became one of his most requested songs and is often used in dance halls throughout Texas during waltz lessons. Tubb recorded duets with the then up-and-coming Loretta Lynn in the early 1960s, including their hit "Sweet Thang". Tubb is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Tubb was born on a cotton farm near Crisp, in Ellis County, Texas (now a ghost town). His father was a sharecropper, so Tubb spent his youth working on farms throughout the state. He was inspired by Jimmie Rodgers and spent his spare time learning to sing, yodel, and play the guitar. At age 19 he took a job as a singer on San Antonio radio station KONO-AM. The pay was low so Tubb also dug ditches for the Works Progress Administration and then clerked at a drug store. In 1939 he moved to San Angelo, Texas and was hired to do a 15-minute afternoon live show on radio station KGKL-AM. He drove a beer delivery truck in order to support himself during this time, and during World War II he wrote and recorded a song titled "Beautiful San Angelo".

Mercyful Fate was a Danish heavy metal band from Copenhagen. Initially active from 1981 to 1985, they reunited in 1992. The band went on hiatus again in 2000, when frontman King Diamond decided to continue his solo career. They are cited as major influences by many artists in the black metal, thrash metal, power metal, and progressive metal genres.

Mercyful Fate was founded in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1981^{[citation needed]} from the remaining members of Hank Shermann's band Brats and King Diamond's band Black Rose. In early 1981 they helped out Michael Denner with demos for his band Danger Zone. Soon, Shermann, Denner, Diamond, and Denner's bass player Timi "Grabber" Hansen realized their potential as a unit and started performing as Mercyful Fate. The band experienced the usual member changes for a new band, as Denner left (and later returned). In addition, the drummer position was a revolving door, but Kim Ruzz finally established himself as the drummer.

In early 1982, Mercyful Fate contributed to the Ebony Records sampler Metallic Storm. Later on in the year, the band recorded their first material, The Mercyful Fate EP, on vinyl for the Dutch label Rave On. The EP was released in 1982 and included material that would later inspire the black metal genre.

Gavin McGregor Rossdale (born 30 October 1965) is an English musician, known as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the rock band Bush as well as an actor. Following Bush's separation in 2002, which lasted for eight years, he was the lead singer and guitarist for Institute, and later began a solo career. He continues to perform both Bush and Institute songs during his solo concerts. Rossdale is married to fellow musician Gwen Stefani.

Rossdale was born in Kilburn, London, the son of Barbara Stephan (Bowie) and Douglas Rossdale, a doctor. His mother was born in Scotland and his father's parents were of Russian Jewish descent, the family's surname originally being Rosenthal. His parents divorced when he was eleven years old, and he was raised primarily by his father and aunt. His mother remarried and moved to Tampa, Florida. Rossdale has a younger sister, Soraya, and an elder one, Lorraine. Rossdale's half brother, David Rossdale, is the Bishop of Grimsby (a suffragan in the Diocese of Lincoln). Rossdale's half sister, Georgina Rossdale-Smith, is a doctor.