Review: Riley Keough can sing, but 'Daisy Jones & the Six' is a featherweight flop

Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY
·4 min read
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Picture this: A 1970s rock band at the height of its power, with big egos, big romances and big fights brewing beneath the surface of the music.

What do you see? Cameron Crowe's 2000 film "Almost Famous"? The real history of Fleetwood Mac? A VH1 "Behind the Music" documentary?

Not quite. Instead, what you'll be seeing a lot of in the next month is a messy combination of all of the above in Amazon Prime's new limited series "Daisy Jones & the Six," based on Taylor Jenkins Reid's 2019 novel.

A fake documentary about a fake classic rock group that seems an awful lot like the band behind "Rumours," "Daisy" (streaming Fridays in March, ★★ out of four) is all sex, drugs and style with none of the heart and substance of rock ’n’ roll.

It is fleeting Fleetwood fan fiction, a far cry from capturing the true essence of the ’70s era. (And the real Fleetwood Mac had more drama in just one album cycle than the fictional Daisy Jones & The Six musters in the entire series.) "Daisy" is the most disappointing of TV endeavors: Glossy, star-studded and completely hollow.

Riley Keough as Daisy Jones and Sam Claflin as Billy Dunne in Amazon's "Daisy Jones and the Six."
Riley Keough as Daisy Jones and Sam Claflin as Billy Dunne in Amazon's "Daisy Jones and the Six."

Created by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber ("The Disaster Artist"), "Daisy" tells the band members' story in 1997 to a documentarian, 20 years after their heyday of No. 1 singles and stadium tours (more information about the documentary is revealed before the end of the season).

It charts the two paths that led to the band's creation: Daisy Jones' (Riley Keough, "The Girlfriend Experience"), a singer-songwriter in Los Angeles, and Billy Dunne's (Sam Claflin, "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire"), the lead singer of a little band that could from Pittsburgh. Billy's band and Daisy's solo act struggle and scrape by, but when a music producer (Tom Wright) puts them together, they become hugely popular, virtually overnight, even as drama bubbles behind the scenes.

How to watch: 'Daisy Jones & The Six'

Billy is married to Camila (Camila Morrone), a hometown girl who followed him to LA and is raising their daughter. But from the moment they share a microphone, Billy and Daisy make moon eyes at each other. Meanwhile, keyboardist Karen (Suki Waterhouse) and guitarist Graham (Will Harrison), Billy's brother, have their own rocky relationship, and bassist Eddie (Josh Whitehouse) feels pushed to the background.

No one is helped by the vices of rock legends – too much alcohol, drugs and sex. (The band's drummer Warren, played by Sebastian Chacon, exists blissfully drama-free in the series, and is a carefree delight.)

The fictional band of "Daisy Jones & the Six": Josh Whitehouse as Eddie Roundtree (bass), Suki Waterhouse as Karen Sirko (keyboard), Sebastian Chacon as Warren Rojas (drums), Sam Claflin as Billy Dunne (guitar and vocals), Riley Keough as Daisy Jones (vocals) and Will Harrison as Graham Dunne (bass).
The fictional band of "Daisy Jones & the Six": Josh Whitehouse as Eddie Roundtree (bass), Suki Waterhouse as Karen Sirko (keyboard), Sebastian Chacon as Warren Rojas (drums), Sam Claflin as Billy Dunne (guitar and vocals), Riley Keough as Daisy Jones (vocals) and Will Harrison as Graham Dunne (bass).

I haven't read Reid's book, so it's hard to tell if Amazon's series is a surface-level adaptation or is working from shallow source material. But it's impossible to connect with any of these characters because every move and emotional beat feels contrived. Take Billy: Claflin has jawbones that could cut glass and a mop of brown hair (a wig) constantly falling into his clear, sparkling eyes, but he lacks the musical chops or ineffable magnetism of a ’70s rock god. It's impossible to believe that Billy could be one and bring an entire band with him.

More: Taylor Jenkins Reid's 'Carrie Soto Is Back' is a perfectly timed ode to Serena Williams

"Daisy" aims for an epic love triangle that is meant to pull heartstrings along with guitar strings, but to be successful that would require chemistry, heat and stakes behind it. Try as the writers might, they can't make you care about Billy or Camila or even Daisy enough to win emotional attachment for their romantic ventures. Camila is an afterthought who exists primarily as an impediment to Billy's musical and sexual goals. And she's not the only woman shoehorned into the story: Supporting character Simone (Nabiyah Be) flits in and out as a Black disco singer (and Daisy's onetime roommate) who seems to appear because the producers feared the show was too white.

Camila Morrone as Camila and Sam Claflin as Billy in "Daisy Jones and the Six."
Camila Morrone as Camila and Sam Claflin as Billy in "Daisy Jones and the Six."

Keough, with some billowy Stevie Nicks cosplay and a red wig, is at least very well cast as Daisy, delivering on her promise whether she's screaming at Billy or singing into a microphone. And she can really sing too, which one would expect of Elvis Presley's granddaughter.  But her brassy alto has a twang which, combined with lovelorn lyrics and strummy melodies, gives the songs a country flavor that is dissonant with the rock genre the band is trying to emulate. The music – and there is a whole album's worth of original songs – is fun if lacking depth, like everything else in the series.

Try as it might, "Daisy" can't create an evocative story out of nostalgia, electric guitars and pretty people.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Daisy Jones & the Six' review: Riley Keough leads featherweight flop