review: DAISY JONES is out of tune

booktok, the name of a community on tiktok made out of people who rarely meet a good book they wanted to read, is a dangerous, damned place. you’ll find people too young for tumblr, but still old enough to know better than call THE FAULT IN OUR STARS a good book fawn over coollen hoover books as if they’re more than just first drafts written by a chronically horny woman*. every once in a while, booktok might latch onto a well written enough book that, provided you shut off your brain, might even entertain you.

*nothing wrong w being horny, everything wrong w coollen hoover.

such is the case of DAISY JONES AND THE SIX, a 2019 novel which follows the titular band as they become an unit, release a blockbuster album, and then shortly disband. set in the 70s, the highest, sweatiest, and most musically progressive decade, the book is a fun read, even if it feels like it was written by someone who lacked the guts to truly take on the history of the real life inspiration (fleetwood mac, obviously). the book is rather big on booktok, a shame since it deserves better than to be lumped in w romcoms written while drunk on red wine.

the success of DAISY JONES could have lead to only one thing: an adaptation for the screen, duh. four years after the book’s release, amazon prime released its ten-episode (hopefully) limited series in this spring and, despite boasting great talent behind and in front of the camera, the show feels as fresh as an a edm remix of an iconic 70s song. an out-of-tune piano, the show took whatever complexity one could occasionally find in the book and replaced w one-note drama and questionable choices.

daisy jones (a somehow charmless riley keough) is a struggling singer-songwriter who found solace in music when her parents couldn’t be bothered to give her the love she deserved. not interested in being someone’s muse, she aims to take over the music industry the way she takes over every room she enters. billy dunne (sam claflin, wearing mark strong’s wig from TÁR) is the moody lead singer of a band he formed w his brother, graham (will harrison), eddie roundtree (josh whitehouse), sebastian chacon (warren rojas), and karen sirko (suki waterhouse). billy is stuck between the excesses that come w being a rockstar and the love he “has”* for camila alvarez (camila morrone).

*i saw “has” because their love is as convincing as the flat earth theory.

when we meet everybody in 1977, they’re all struggling to navigate the wild world of rock-and-roll. daisy is a drug addict who refuses to compromise, billy keeps fucking around w his band as he can’t decide what he wants, graham and karen are having a will-they-won’t-they that lacks any chemistry or the exciting secrecy of a relationship kept under wraps. there’s a lack of vivaciousness that plagues the show. instead of teasing us w the sins of 1970s los angeles, the story feels sedate, as if it took one of daisy’s pills in order to present the most mellow take on fleetwood mac.

not even when the titular band gets formed do things pick up. the chemistry between daisy and billy feels lacking and it’s hard to understand why they’d be so drawn to each other. what’s more, their relationship only makes camila into a burden dragging billy behind. we’re lead to believe that billy wants to be a better man for her and their child, but not only does he not show that repeatedly (he does not seem to respect her enough), we also get the feeling that camila is too stupid to do better. her love for him is so grand, she’d stay w him despite his repeat offense, clear love for daisy, and lack of respect for camila herself.

but at least daisy, billy, and camila have personalities which is more than i can say for the characters of the band. other than graham being lovesick, none of them have any discernible traits. karen starts off as being a badass, but she becomes The Girl Of The Band, almost being villainized for the way her relationship w graham goes. timothy olyphant and nabiyah be get some material to work w as rod reyes, the tour manager, and simone jackson, daisy’s best friend and a disco legend, but their scenes are too far and few. it’s especially disheartening to see simone get relegated to being daisy’s best friend first, only being her own character second.

a show about a band from the 1970s should at least have an exciting sound, but the music of DAISY JONES sounds like what you’d get if you asked a little big town-meets-pentatonix band to emcee your barn wedding. it was always going to be hard to replicate the music of the era to the t, but the songs here are so bland, they’re emptier than the mason jars with lyrics painted on them you’ll find on etsy in the following months. HONEYCOMB is the closest you’ll get to an exciting sound, but everything else is an ai’s idea of what fleetwood mac w/o the drugs or explosive nature of the band members would be like.

taking on the subject of fleetwood mac, even in a fictionalized way, was always going to be a mighty task, but the show feels too sedate. even tho there’s sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll involved, the series lacks a danger that was very much needed. DAISY JONES feels more like a coward’s idea of the rock scene from 1970s after skimming through the wikipedia page for the stevie-nicks-led band than an exciting take on it. it’s DREAMS as covered by your coachella loving friends.

DAISY JONES AND THE SIX can be streamed on amazon prime.