The first episodes of the TV series Daisy Jones & the Six weren't released on Amazon until Friday, as was the tied-in album, but the fictional musical group already has taken its place among the best bands that never were. Rolling Stone has produced a list of the top 50 songs produced by fictional musicians in TV and films, and the Six come in at No. 30 with "Look At Us Now (Honeycomb)." To be considered, songs had to be original compositions, not performed by a musician more or less playing themselves, and the product of a truly fictional music act. So hits by cartoon bands are in, as is anything by "Hannah Montana," but Prince's "Purple Rain" is not. The bands on the list were fake, Rolling Stone says, but the songs were quite real and must be dealt with.
Compiling the list gave the staff a chance to renew the nearly 60-year debate over whether the Monkees were an actual band. The experts decided to exclude the Monkees—which seems like a compliment—reasoning that with the help of the Geppettos of the music industry, the original TV band grew into the real thing. Also, the group might've been something of a ringer on this list: The Monkees placed 20 singles on Billboard's Hot 100. Here's a sampling of the Rolling Stone picks:
50. The Brady Bunch, 1972, The Brady Bunch: The Brady Bunch was no Partridge Family, Rolling Stone says, but the siblings make it under the wire here with "Time to Change," a song that takes advantage of Peter's changing voice. The more interesting take appears only on the TV episode, not on the recorded version.
42. Dewey Cox, 2007, Walk Hard: John C. Reilly is a mashup of fictional stars but mostly does his Johnny Cash, and "Walk Hard" channels the early hits. The emotional, "extra brilliant" result is "a parody song so well-crafted you don't even realize how silly the lyrics are."
35. Lemonade Mouth, 2011, Lemonade Mouth: "She's So Gone" is "the Disney Channel equivalent of Katy Perry's "Roar," Rolling Stone says. After a breakup with a boyfriend dismissive of her music, her character finds empowerment in Naomi Scott's performance, changing her "into an independent rock star who knows her worth and believes in her dreams."
34. Stillwater, 2000, Almost Famous: Nancy Wilson wrote "Fever Dog," which helps make the fake band—which provides a straight line to Daisy Jones and the Six—believable as not just genuine but good, Rolling Stone says, adding, "Jeff Bebe's Robert Plant-like howl hits Russell Hammond's guitar like a groovy train wreck."
30. Daisy Jones & the Six, 2023, Daisy Jones & the Six: The series' music mostly does not rival that of Fleetwood Mac, the band it seeks to evoke. But then there's "Look At Us Now (Honeycomb)," the song that comes closest to sounding like it could be a track on Rumours. Highlights include the guitar solo and the harmonies of Sam Claflin and Riley Keough: "When those two are leaning into the same mic and trading verses and lustful glances, you can imagine that the Six really were the biggest band in the world for a minute." Again, the episode's version seems better than the released track.
15. Jamal, 2015, Empire: Jussie Smollet and Yazz sing lead on the joyful "You're So Beautiful," a song reworked throughout the show, "most searingly and importantly when Smollett’s Jamal reworks it and its gender pronoun to come out publicly."
The champion: As is often the case, Tom Hanks is involved in this winning film—that's just the thing he does. Adam Schlesinger wrote the No. 1 song so infectious that it "plays in full or in part 11 different times in the film, and never gets old."
The full list, with brief reviews, can be found here. (More music stories.)
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