Mai Avuto Tempo is the autobiographical tale of Giacomo Maiolini, founder of Time Records, and at the same time the story of a man who has always lived one step ahead of his own breath. Music is not just his job: it is a physical force, a heartbeat that enters the body and forces it to move, choose, and take risks.Growing up in the province of Brescia, Maiolini developed an obsessive relationship with discipline and the pursuit of excellence from a young age. After walking away from sports, he discovered music as a total revelation: an emotional listening experience, an urgency. From there, a journey began that spans forty years of the music industry—from vinyl records and free pirate radio stations to streaming and artificial intelligence.With Time Records, he became one of the absolute protagonists of Italian and global dance music, sensing the sounds destined to explode before anyone else. Most notably Eurobeat, a musical genre that dominated the Japanese market for two decades and of which he was one of the creators, earning him the title "King of Eurobeat." The book also offers an insider's look into Italo-disco, Eurodance, and House, recounting global hits like Open Your Mind, Don’t Stop, Boom Boom Boom, Feel It, You See the Trouble with Me, Dragostea Din Tei, Destination Calabria, and Nevermind—to name just a few—without forgetting the massive phenomenon that was the Deejay Parade. It shows music for what it truly is: emotion, but also industry, contracts, conflicts, power, and constant risk.
In parallel, there is his personal life: broken friendships, sacrificed affections, and fatherhood experienced from a distance. Every milestone achieved instantly becomes insufficient, because standing still is equivalent to losing ground. Yet, when his greatest success arrives, so does the emptiness: the loss of his mother and a silent depression mark the moment when Maiolini stops "feeling" the music.In the final chapters, the tone shifts: there is no true redemption, but rather an awakening. His relationship with Bali, spirituality, a changing body, charitable commitment, and a clear-eyed look at the contemporary industry mark a new phase. Time remains an obsession, but it also becomes something to be lived through, not just chased.
Mai Avuto Tempo is the story of a life built on continuous motion: a book about success and its cost, about rhythm as both salvation and condemnation, and about the impossibility, for some, of standing still without sinking.