What follows was occasioned by an event staged at the Université de Montréal under the heading, “From Record to Art/The Record as Art,” an event in conjunction with an exhibition dedicated to the recently acquired record collection of Charles Gagnon. I gratefully received a piece of this collection as a token of appreciation upon my departure from Montréal. The asymmetrical antimetabole that structures the title invites a form of attention that urges one to carefully weigh both Record and Art. Neither can be taken at face value, for if something must happen to a record such that it can be considered Art, then it follows that something must likewise happen to Art once it subsumes the record. To get at this transubstantiation—and here I am showing my hand—it is desirable to situate any consideration of the specifically broken record in relation to the infinite conversation about the concept of Art to be found in certain precincts of Western critical theory, notably in the work of Theodor Adorno especially as it struggled to assess the impact of mass culture (everything from phonography and radio, to cinema and television) on Art as both concept and phenomenon.