Aurora is a studio and soundtrack album released on March 1, 2023 by Atlantic Records to promote the Amazon Prime Video streaming television miniseries Daisy Jones & the Six, based on Taylor Jenkins Reid's 2019 novel of the same name. The 11-track album headlined by the fictional titular band featured songs with lead vocals performed by Riley Keough and Sam Claflin, and the songs are composed, performed and produced by Blake Mills with additional music production by Tony Berg and co-production by Chris Weisman, Jackson Browne, Marcus Mumford, and Phoebe Bridgers.  The soundtrack album is produced by Blake Mills, Kevin Weaver, Pete Ganbarg, Brandon Davis and Joseph Khoury.

The fictional album in the original novel was loosely based on Fleetwood Mac's eleventh studio album Rumours (1977). The cast rehearsed many of the songs at their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. All the songs were recorded and mixed at the Sound City Studios in Los Angeles. The album received generally positive reviews for musical quality and conveying the essence of the fictional band as well as the music of the 1970s.

Background 
Series showrunner Taylor Jenkins Reid recruited Blake Mills to produce the album, along with fellow record producer Phoebe Bridgers and singer-songwriter Chris Weisman. "I'm not a musician. I hear something in my head, but it's not anything that anyone could make into a song," she said. "So the idea that people are going to create this album is incredibly exciting to me. I was meeting with one of the guys at Amazon, and we were talking about the music, and he was saying he was very daunted by the task of having to create the song 'Aurora'. He was like, 'You have made it out to be the greatest album of the 1970s!' And now he has to go figure out a way to make it. I'm just glad it's not my problem." According to Blake Mills, who was interviewed by Jonathan Bernstein of Rolling Stone in June 2020, "there's an opportunity to subvert and create a guitar personality that could have been present in the Seventies, and wasn't [...] People just loved guitar at that point. So I’m trying to find an appreciation for the instrument and try to bend it to my will a little bit."

Release history 
The album was announced on January 25, 2023, with the track list also being revealed. It was planned to be released on March 3, 2023 coinciding with the series. But the MP3 album released two days earlier than scheduled, whereas the physical form was released on vinyl by Ellemar Records (the fictional record label in the original novel) on March 2. The LP edition was issued as a two-sided 180-gram disc, on multicolored vinyl with variants such as orange, blue translucent, yellow translucent and teal. The latter was released as a special edition through Barnes & Noble retailers.

Singles 
The album was led by the first single "Regret Me" released on the same day as the album preview on January 25, 2023. The album was performed by Keough and Claflin along with Nicki Bluhm and James Petralli performing the background vocals. The second track "Look at Us Now (Honeycomb)" was released on February 15, 2023. Two versions of the song were released: a single edit that runs four minutes and 30 seconds, and a five minute, thirty-two second longer version.  Mumford subsequently released his own version of "Look at Us Now" alongside Maren Morris.

Reception 

Writing for Pitchfork, Pete Tosiello scored the album 6.6 out of 10 and wrote "Aurora is the soft-rock holy grail, an achievement that transforms American music and rends its creators in the process. The series is burdened by the same strictures as folk musicals Begin Again and Juliet, Naked, not to mention low-prestige cable dramas Vinyl and Dave: In dramatizing the creative process and the difficulty of genius, the work becomes secondary. Logistically, a narrative hinging on transcendent music is undone when the songs are just pretty good. The album struggles to apprehend Fleetwood Mac's audacity, conflating a '70s rock pinnacle with easy-listening ballads. Aurora is bold only as far as tribute-band supergroups go." Tilly Pearce of Den of Geek summarized "for an album based on a TV show, Aurora has no right to be this dang good – full of earworm tracks that will remain in your head for ages."

Vicky Greer in his review for The Line of Best Fit gave 7/10 and wrote "Purists might be jarred by the fact that the series' version of Aurora bears little resemblance to the book, but don't let that put you off – this album captures all the magic and intensity created by Taylor Jenkins Reid." Cate Pasterchick of Beyond The Stage also rated the same and summarised "While the album could never outdo its non-fictional equivalents, Aurora serves its purpose of emulating the greats. Aurora is nostalgic, but it's not the heart and soul of 70s music. That kind of magnetism can only be found in the original era. With that being said, Daisy Jones & The Six's one and only album beautifully immortalizes the beloved book." Will Hodgkinson of The Times stated, "For a Seventies band who never existed, this is pretty authentic". Marcy Donelson of AllMusic wrote: "In the end, while Aurora plays out more like a cast album than unearthed period vinyl, it does hover on the spectrum, and the actor/musicians come to play while songs suggest the intended period Los Angeles music scene, if they rarely stand strong enough on their own to create their own legend."

Track listing 
All tracks are produced by Blake Mills.

Personnel 

 Blake Mills – music production, mixing
 Tony Berg – additional music production
 Chris Weisman – additional music production
 Jackson Browne – additional music production
 Marcus Mumford – additional music production
 Phoebe Bridgers – additional music production
 Scott Neustadter – liner notes
 Taylor Jenkins Reid – liner notes
 Will Maclellan – additional recording
 Joseph Lorge – recording, mixing
 Greg Koller – mastering
 Ashley Strumwasser – executive producer
 Brad Mendelsohn – executive producer
 Frankie Pine – executive producer
 Lauren Neustadter – executive producer
 Will Graham – executive producer
 Brandon Davis – soundtrack album producer
 Joseph Khoury – soundtrack album producer
 Kevin Weaver – soundtrack album producer
 Pete Ganbarg – soundtrack album producer

Charts

References 

2023 soundtrack albums
Atlantic Records soundtracks
Albums produced by Blake Mills
Albums produced by Marcus Mumford
Albums produced by Phoebe Bridgers
Albums recorded at Sound City Studios
Albums impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic
Television soundtracks