Ask ChatGPT to “write a fictionalized biography of Fleetwood Mac in the style of an oral history,” and the bot will respond with a flurry of hilariously realistic clichés about the “wild ride” that is rock stardom. “We were making records that people really connected with,” says one imagined band member. “It was a wonderful feeling.” Another observes that “the success was great, but it also came with a lot of pressure.”
This uncanny-valley conversation could’ve been ripped from the pages of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s 2019 novel Structured as an oral history and openly influenced by Fleetwood Mac’s tumultuous romances, it traces the slow rise and abrupt combustion of a 1970s L.A. rock band. “I felt connected to them in a way that I hadn’t felt connected to
