Riley Keough and Sam Claflin lead dramatic series Daisy Jones & the Six about a fictional 1970s band’s rise from the LA music scene. Cat Woods is thrilled by this tale of the ultimate rockstars in the making – and its incredible original music.
Daisy Jones & The Six: Season 1
Daisy Jones & the Six is the best small-screen entertainment of 2023 so far. The summation of spot-on casting, 70s rockstar costumes (glittering, crochet, flared and booted), pacey plots and the amber-lit LA landscape is enough, but then there is the original soundtrack. “Aurora” is an 11-track vinyl record, both fictional and genuinely available from March 3, that snakes into your neural circuits so that—throughout the day—you’ll find yourself humming the melodies and singing the lyrics.
Those lyrics tumbled from the imagination of Daisy Jones & the Six author Taylor Jenkins Reid, who has a knack for penning novels that invite screen adaptations. Several of her other books are currently in production or soon to be released, including One True Loves, Malibu Rising, and bestseller The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. If they’re even a fraction as wonderful as the Amazon Prime adaptation of Daisy Jones & the Six, which Reid produced, we have a lot to look forward to.
Those who are familiar with Reid’s book (and you don’t have to be to fully enjoy this series) will recall that the entire book is dialogue in the style of a film script. Reid wanted to create a fictionalised music documentary telling of the rise and combustion of an epic 1970s rock band, inspired by Fleetwood Mac and their compelling love affairs, drug addictions and timelessly beloved music. Could songs like The Chain, Gold Dust Woman, Go Your Own Way and Little Lies have existed in all their glory without the impassioned, reckless drama between Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie and John McVie (and their many affairs)?
In Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne, we meet the ultimate rockstars in the making. Both, well before they collide into one another’s lives, discover a sanctum in music that provides solace from their scarred childhoods, studded with neglectful or malicious parents, drinking and dreaming of escape.
Riley Keough is intoxicating as the defiant, beautiful, self-sabotaging Daisy. The daughter of Lisa Marie Presley and Danny Keough (and granddaughter of Elvis) knows the realities of intergenerational fame, the veneer of celebrity and the genuine legacy of a rock music pioneer that transcends time. Pertinently, her own life and her past acting credits prepared her to fully embody Daisy, who is exploited by men from the moment she hits puberty and strides—leggy, sullen and stunning—into the streets and clubs of downtown LA.
Keough won a Golden Globe for her role as escort Christine Reade in The Girlfriend Experience, who teetered between being an empowered, independent woman and a victim of a patriarchal, American culture which values and capitalises women entirely on their sexual appeal and subservience. Daisy Jones shares that same catastrophic reality: how much can she exploit her beauty to get what she wants? In this constant power play between industry men and the creative muse, does she have any cachet really? For how long?
Equally as spellbinding as Keough, Sam Claflin as Billy Dunne must wrestle with power dynamics, too. He is the frontman, the songwriter, and heartthrob of the Dunne Brothers (later The Six), determined to absorb the full glare of the spotlight upon his chiselled cheekbones as he enthrals audiences with his throaty drawl and haunted refrains. Only, he is not cutting it in the studio. His attempts at hit songs fall flat, and Runner Records’ producer Teddy Price (played wonderfully by Tom Wright) is prepared to cut the Dunnes loose, until he lands upon the ideal solution: partner the lacklustre songwriting of Billy Dunne with the fiery, untamed talent of songwriter and vocal powerhouse Daisy Jones, and what might spool forth?
Price is, of course, on the money. The duo bicker, throw fierce tantrums and allow their egos free reign, but when they hit upon a perfect rhythm, the right melody for their lyrics, the heart-rending pull and resistance of a dual harmony, they are utterly magic.
It is evident from the outset that they are doomed to fall head over heels for one another. But, Dunne is already married to Camila (Camila Morrone), the mother of his daughter, and Daisy’s various substance addictions form a shadow around her that threatens anyone who gets close. The ferocious current between them kept me binge-watching for hours, despite having read the book and knowing how things pan out.
To its great credit, and Reid’s wonderfully nuanced characters, Simone (Nabiyah Be, a songwriter and performer), Karen (Suki Waterhouse, also a musician in her own right), Graham (Will Harrison), Warren (Sebastian Chacon), and Eddie (Josh Whitehouse) are not superficial side stories. Their own messy romances, ambitions, battles and heartbreak form a fuller narrative. At the heart of Daisy Jones are two elements that writhe around one another, pushing, pulling, swelling and corroding: multifaceted, chameleonic love and the art of music.
The love is fierce and complicated and redemptive: between friends, lovers, parents and their children, bandmates, and the intangible relationship between artists, music industry insiders, and their audiences.
The music is incredible, and if you loved Fleetwood Mac, The Runaways, Patti Smith, Television, Donna Summer and Gloria Gaynor, there’s plenty of nostalgic excitement elicited in hearing the recording and live performance re-enactments of Daisy Jones & the Six‘s Aurora. The record, in a fiction-meets-real-life affair, will be released on Warner Records.
You’ll love this phenomenal adaptation if you know and love the book. If it is all fresh and unknown to you, then let its intricate, immersive storytelling reel you right in.
