Gramophone record in the context of "Church of the Poison Mind"

A portable media player (PMP) or digital audio player (DAP) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. Normally, they refer to small, battery-powered devices utilising flash memory or a hard disk for storing various media files. MP3 players has been a popular alternative name used for such devices, even if they also support other file formats and media types other than MP3 (for example AAC, FLAC, WMA).

Generally speaking, PMPs are equipped with a 3.5 mm headphone jack which can be used for headphones or to connect to a boombox, home audio system, or connect to car audio and home stereos wired or via a wireless connection such as Bluetooth, and some may include radio tuners, voice recording and other features. In contrast, analogue portable audio players play music from non-digital media that use analogue media, such as cassette tapes or vinyl records. As devices became more advanced, the PMP term was later introduced to describe players with additional capabilities such as video playback (they used to also be called "MP4 players"). The PMP term has also been used as an umbrella name to describe any portable device for multimedia, including physical formats (such as portable CD players) or handheld game consoles with such capabilities.

Shellac (/ʃəˈlæk/) is a resin secreted by the female lac bug on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. Chemically, it is mainly composed of aleuritic acid, jalaric acid, shellolic acid, and other natural waxes. It is processed and sold as dry flakes and dissolved in alcohol to make liquid shellac, which is used as a brush-on colorant, food glaze and wood finish. Shellac functions as a tough natural primer, sanding sealant, tannin-blocker, odor-blocker, stain, and high-gloss varnish. Shellac was once used in electrical applications as it is a good insulator and seals out moisture. Phonograph and 78 rpm gramophone records were made of shellac until it was replaced by vinyl.

From the time shellac replaced oil and wax finishes in the 19th century, it was one of the dominant wood finishes in the western world until it was largely replaced by nitrocellulose lacquer in the 1920s and 1930s. Besides wood finishing, shellac is used as an ingredient in food, medication and candy as confectioner's glaze, and to preserve harvested citrus fruit.

Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone is the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one that was widely used and commercially successful. The soundtrack is not printed on the film, but issued separately on phonograph records. The discs, recorded at 33+1⁄3 rpm (a speed first used for this system) and typically 16 inches (41 cm) in diameter, are played on a turntable physically coupled to the projector motor while the film is projected. Its frequency response is 4300 Hz. Many early talkies, such as The Jazz Singer (1927), used the Vitaphone system. The name "Vitaphone" derived from the Latin and Greek words, respectively, for "living" and "sound".

The "Vitaphone" trademark was later associated with cartoons and other short subjects that had optical soundtracks and did not use discs.

A record shop or record store is a retail outlet that sells recorded music. Per the name, in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, record shops only sold gramophone records. But over the course of the 20th century, record shops sold the new formats that were developed, such as eight track tapes, compact cassettes and compact discs (CDs). Today, in the 21st century, record stores mainly sell CDs, vinyl records and, in some cases, DVDs of movies, TV shows, cartoons and concerts. Some record stores also sell music-related items such as posters of bands or singers, related clothing items and even merchandise such as bags and coffee mugs.

Even when CDs became popular during the 1990s, people in English-speaking countries still continued using the term "record shop" to describe a shop selling sound recordings. With the vinyl revival of the 21st century, often generating more income than CDs, the name is again accurate.

Mobile disc jockeys (also known as mobile DJs or mobile discos) are disc jockeys that tour with portable sound, lighting, and video systems. They play music for a targeted audience from a collection of pre-recorded music using vinyl records, cassettes, CDs, or digital music formats such as USB flash drives or laptop computers.

Mobile DJs perform at a variety of events including wedding receptions, Bar and Bat Mitzvah receptions, company parties, school dances, anniversaries, and birthday parties. They also perform in public at taverns, nightclubs, and block parties.

Dust Bowl Ballads is an album by American folk singer Woody Guthrie. It was released by Victor Records, in 1940. All the songs on the album deal with the Dust Bowl and its effects on the country and its people. It is considered to be one of the first concept albums. It was Guthrie's first commercial recording and the most successful album of his career.

Dust Bowl Ballads was originally released as eleven songs on two simultaneously released three-disc set albums of 78 rpm records titled Dust Bowl Ballads, Vol. 1 and Dust Bowl Ballads, Vol. 2. The twelve sides in total had one song each except for the double-sided "Tom Joad" which was too long to be pressed on a single side of a 78. However, two of the thirteen songs recorded on the sessions, "Pretty Boy Floyd" and "Dust Bowl Blues" were left out due to length. All of the tracks were recorded at Victor studios in Camden, New Jersey on April 26, 1940, except "Dust Cain't Kill Me" and "Dust Pneumonia Blues" which were recorded on May 3. In 1950, and in 1964 during the American folk music revival, reissues were released in LP format by Folkways Records after RCA refused Guthrie's request to re-issue the album. RCA Victor also re-released the album in 1964 but with the two previously unreleased tracks included, and in 2000 this was reissued by Buddha Records with an additional previously unreleased alternate version of one song. The complete Dust Bowl Ballads remains available on compact disc through Smithsonian Folkways.

Gapless playback is the uninterrupted playback of consecutive audio tracks, such that relative time distances in the original audio source are preserved over track boundaries on playback. For this to be useful, other artifacts (than timing-related ones) at track boundaries should not be severed either. Gapless playback is common with compact discs, gramophone records, or tapes, but is not always available with other formats that employ compressed digital audio. The absence of gapless playback is a source of annoyance to listeners of music where tracks are meant to segue into each other, such as some classical music (opera in particular), progressive rock, concept albums, electronic music, and live recordings with audience noise between tracks.

Clothing technology describes advances in production methods, material developments, and the incorporation of smart technologies into textiles and clothes. The clothing industry has expanded  throughout time, reflecting advances not just in apparel manufacturing and distribution, but also in textile functionality and environmental effect. The timeline of clothing and textiles technology includes major changes in the manufacture and distribution of clothing.

From clothing in the ancient world into modernity, the use of technology has dramatically influenced clothing and fashion in the modern age. Industrialization brought changes in the manufacture of goods. In many nations, homemade goods crafted by hand have largely been replaced by factory produced goods on assembly lines purchased in a consumer culture. Innovations include man-made materials such as polyester, nylon, and vinyl as well as features like zippers and velcro. The advent of advanced electronics has resulted in wearable technology being developed and popularized since the 1980s.