Daisy Jones and the Six

If you're a fan you don't have to read anything to know Daisy Jones and The Six borrowed quite a bit from Fleetwood Mac. And I find myself unable to review this series without reference to them. I think that's fair because it would impossible to make nostalgic music dramas without being heavily influenced by those (Rock Pop) bands which dominated that era.

It's basically a fictional version of that documentary about the making of (F Mac album) 'Rumours', including emotionally charged compositions and lyrical battles between band members, who are all to some extent entangled in the intensity. It's the classic love/hate story that produces some very fine music. If you've been in bands - especially on the road - you'll know how all this could happen.

The reason that's more than ok is because The Six do actually have the great songs. Maybe not as enduringly massive as F-Mac's but still, you can believe that they would have had success.

Riley Keogh is fabulous and more than equivalent to represent Stevie Nicks' dulcet tones. Billy is not as edgy as Lindsay Buckingham but that's OK. They even have the classy English girl on keyboards, although Suki Waterhouse's character Karen isn't the singer/songwriter that Christine McVie was. A less memorable bassist (sorry, John). And let's hear it for the ubiquitous fun-loving drummer!

It was funny, dramatic, authentic and a good story - and there were sufficient loose ends, as there are in life. Another IMDb user reviewer wrote about how the events may not be quite as we see them, and that's really worth considering.

Highly recommended for Pop music fans and hopeless romantics.

This is the type of series that you can't fully appreciate unless you have seen it all. Keep that in mind when reading the negative comments. My wife and I watched all 10 episodes and we both enjoyed it as interesting fiction. We both were teenagers during the 1960s and we understand how rocky the road was for many groups getting together then staying together. Few of them, if any, had a smooth existence without difficult internal drama among band members. This roughly 8-hours of programming does a good job of portraying the highs and lows of a typical band. This is fiction but from what I have learned over the years, about how now-famous bands got together back in the 1960s and early 1970s, it seems very authentic.

In the very first episode we are told that the band, 'Daisy Jones and the Six', performed their last concert in Chicago in 1977. And that no one could have foreseen that. The middle episodes, two through nine, develop the characters and the progression of the band, through studio recording and road concerts. It is done in a style where each (now former) band member is interviewed on video some years after 1977. I'd estimate the mid 1990s. So most of the story is told in a type of flashback to earlier times.

First there are two brothers and a few friends from Pittsburgh who decide to form a band. They play a number of local gigs but are going nowhere, until someone suggests that they go west, to the Los Angeles area, the melting pot and hot spot for the formation of music groups. So they did, naively thinking that it would be straightforward. They quickly found out it wasn't.

A parallel story is that of Daisy, growing up in the Los Angeles area. She has always enjoyed music from a very young age, would sing along with recordings, but was never encouraged. So she struck it out alone when she turned 18. Episode three is devoted to how Daisy and the band "The Six" were able to meet for the first time, through a music producer, and make their first recording together.

The last episode, number ten, brings everything full circle and has a series of stories about each surviving member, mostly positive stories about how they were able to sort out their lives and achieve happiness. Riley Keough (about 33) and Sam Claflin (about 36) are each really good and authentic in their roles as Daisy and Billy. Although neither had been a "singer" before this production, each did their own singing and are as good as they needed to be for the era portrayed.

All in all a very successful Amazon Prime drama series. Elvis would be proud.

Good nostalgia trip if you lived through the era. The meteoric rise and subsequent crash of a FICTIONAL 70's R&R band, complete with the drugs and sex drama that seemed to define the bands of the period. Some have said this is based on Fleetwood Mac, I'll confess I don't know enough about their history. However it appears that Riley Keough, playing Daisy Jones, the lead singer and lyricist of most of their tunes, on Stevie Nicks as she performs on stage, right down to her costuming and constant twirling. There are 10 episodes in this, only a couple fall flat. Only one big star in this, Timothy Olyphant [Justified, Deadwood] He's a terrific actor, but has very little to do in this, playing a tour manager. The final episode is the only one he has much of a part in. Sounds like an easy paycheck.

There's quite a bit of criticism about the quality of the music, which was all original. That's the tough part about making this a fictional band. My credit to the song writers, I wouldn't call the material great but it was passable. The story had a decent finish.

Four episodes in, I'm perplexed by the negative reviews (probably a bunchof Gen Z and Millens hooked on ancient fantasy nonsense). Yes, there's lots of smoking (and drinking and other things). That's what went on in the 70's. What we also have incredible chemistry between the characters and a glimpse into a culture that seemed only a dream for working class garage band kids growing up in the 70's, it's fascinating to see the music industry from the perspective of pre-computer musicians who only wanted to have fun and jam real music and showed (at least on stage and creatively) little interest in the goings on in the outside world. Daisy is a talented, yet free spirited loner wild child on a path to self destructive addiction; Billy is an intense and conflicted genius, as he tries to balance his family life with the RnR lifestyle. It's clear they can't live with, or without, each other. The entire band is somewhat of a disfunctional family, but they are family. It has a soap opera feel, emotions are expressed in song. Looking forward to the continuation of the series.

I ate up the first three episodes last night. Kept thinking of Fleetwood Mac, and maybe a bit of Jefferson Airplane if there are any comparisons. I think this show will mainly attract an older crowd, or simply music lovers.

The show starts in the sixties when all the members are kids and progresses until the two forces (band and Keough's character) finally unite around '74, which is around about when Mac had their success when Nicks and Buckingham joined.

====Rewriting rest of review now that I've completed the series After completion, my rating for this series is as strong as ever. Just an overall very enjoyable series following the highs and lows of a '70s supergroup and their internal disintegration at the height of the fame (well actually they probably could have achieve much more). We know from the beginning of the first episode that things are not going to go wells simply as we are told just that in text. It's how we arrive to the fateful point that is...well..the point.

I've not read the book and, honestly, I'd take most negative reviews from readers of the book with a grain of salt - and I think plenty of book readers enjoyed this too. IMO, the show is a very solid rock drama that filled a void for me that I did not even know existed.

The revelation for me was Riley Keogh. I know who she "is" and I've seen her in several things before, but nothing that really highlighted her true talent (and up to this point I thought her talent might be quite limited). She really shines as Daisy with increasing intensity and diversity as the show progresses. My only complaint is how the character is written in her younger years compared to say the bands development. Daisy is assumed to have talent but does basically nothing at all - other than mainly personal dramas - until she is united with the band. Of course, when they unite it is magic. I just though that Daisy should have had at least some minor success as a musician before the band.

The band sub-plots are interesting and entertaining though not nearly as developed. However, they all serve a specific purpose toward the ultimate disintegration, of which I was a bit surprised. The reasons for the implosion are not quite what you may thinking early on.

The key point I want to make here though is that there is more to this "Daisy and the Six" than just the drama. It's a story about the time, the music and how music - and especially songs - are made and wrapped up in the surrounding drama and experiences rather than just being clinical. Brilliant bands have come and gone in a snap, while some have endured for decades. I believe the point here is that for some of these short-lived magical bands it is not just one thing that leads to a break-up.

Anyway, the fate of the band is clearly not going to end well. This is not a spoiler and transparent from the first second, and the trailer. However, the ending throws in a couple of surprises and shock that are both emotional and yet give us something to hold on to as well.