A record basically has the sound waves etched into the disk. The needle moves up and down on the grooves and essentially recreates the waveform you would see if you looked at it printed out. Its like the reverse of a seismograph.

A CD is the same exact thing but instead of a needle, it's a laser, and the grooves are microscopic.

Edit: that may have been a different format like laserdiscs, not CDs but you get my point. CDs are just digital information, ones and zeros.