It has happened to me, on and off, for the past too many years, and on Intel and Apple silicone gear.
I did contact Apple early this year, and the agent asked if it was iTunes content or ripped, and it's both! They said since I was using an external drive, it had to be a fault in the drive, but I've used both traditional drives and SSDs, and they all eventually do this. At one point, I thought it was only Apple purchased content, but two nights ago it started with an artist that I play a lot, and it spread to every song I tried to play, (even other artist tracks) yet just days earlier, all of the songs played completely fine!
And it will go away if I change drives, but will eventually come back. And it's on my iMac Pro, and several mac minis. I get the impression that the Apple Support people do not have a clue what's going on, or how to fix this, short of reloading everything. (I did try that: deleted some iTunes purchased content, re-downloaded it, and it worked for a while, but I've also had it STILL fail.
If it's a bug, it's a persistent one that Apple either can't or won't fix. I just swapped out the drives, and ran the manufacturer tests on the 'problem drive', and it passes all of them. (The only 'fix' seems to be wiping the drive, and rotating in another one until it eventually fails too)
Stumped, stunned...
As soon as it starts, it's unstoppable, it eventually spreads to more and more content and I can't listen to anything!