Is the music we came to know and love in the 20th century still alive? Or has it already completed its evolutionary cycle, making way for a new, mysterious horizon? Gino Castaldo, one of Italy’s most authoritative music critics, guides us on a journey through the most profound transformation of the musical phenomenon in recent decades – perhaps in its entire history – and attempts to give it a name. A transformation that concerns not only sounds, but the entire creative process, and the ways in which music is produced, distributed and consumed.

For decades, Castaldo has been observing and chronicling music and its key figures, inviting the public to reflect on the true essence of this art form. Now, with his unmistakable ability to weave together popular culture and critical analysis, drawing on a deliberately provocative writing style, Castaldo does not merely describe these changes: he questions them, challenges them, and recounts them with passion and depth. From analogue to digital, from vinyl to streaming platforms, right through to the rise of artificial intelligence, this book explores how technology has redefined our relationship with music, transforming it from a collective experience into individual consumption, and from an imperfect, vibrant art form into a perfectly packaged product. But is this really the end of an era? Or the beginning of something entirely new?

Music has ended offers a new way of understanding the present and imagining the future, and restores music to its truest form: that of an art capable of moving us, bringing us together, and standing the test of time.

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