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Los Angeles, 1982. The city, despite plans of renovation and expansion, was plagued in one way or the other by crime, corruption, and drug distribution within much of the community. It was nicknamed by many as the “gang capital in the United States”; a disdainful epithet to show its high number of organised crime syndicates. Skyrocketing housing prices and urban development costs mean that the city, for all its prominence as one of America’s key sites, is thought to be terrible to live in. Neighbouring cities in the state of California like Davis and Sacramento, while it might not have suffered as much from lawlessness, do have their own issues at hand. Davis sees local pressure around the Cold War’s nuclear anxieties alongside Sacramento which culminates in the former declaring itself to be nuclear-free in 1984 while the latter closed down its nuclear reactor by the end of the decade. 

Nevertheless, its cultural scene is among one of the most distinctive in the country. Many young people at the time had opted to listen to power pop or jangle pop usually through college radio stations. A lot of them had grown up in the revolutionary period of psychedelic records that forever changed music as we know it thanks to its inventive use of production to enhance the instruments well beyond live performance. The Three O’Clock frontman Michael Quercio once said that virtually every major band in the scene were, by all accounts, “record collectors who played music” who had bonded together through that experience. Numerous universities and colleges where the artists tend to attend at the time of starting their bands had often shared magazines and copies of songs from punk, synth-pop, or other relatively artsy rock bands. 

Thus, the music generally has a more stringent emphasis on having a unique identity with a different outlook on the influences that shaped the bands. Many names who were seen as part of the Paisley Underground tended to lean toward either power pop’s vicious chords, the trebly vibrations of jangle pop, or a bit of both with varying angles. The ways that the psychedelic production had been emulated varies between each act and whether or not they subvert certain tropes around it.  As quoted from the Rain Parade’s Matt Piucci, “I always felt there was a distinction between Green on Red and the Dream Syndicate, which was more of an expressionist music, and the Rain Parade – we always felt we were impressionists.” Sometimes, there’s a relative supergroup made between the artists in the scene called Rainy Day with their 1984 sole album which covers some of their biggest influences.

While the music from the Bangles and Opal owes itself to psychedelic pop’s melodies, the likes of Green on Red incorporate the more acoustic parts of roots rock. The Bangles’ All Over The Place is the most overtly mainstream-friendly out of the major releases with its blatant pop rock influences and hook-driven songwriting. While it may only have one minor hit through the cover of Katrina and the Waves’ ‘Going Down to Liverpool’, the band’s eventual emergence as one of the major voices of 80s’ America highlights the Paisley Underground’s potential. It might not have the backing of major record labels for most of the time, but the clear ear to catchiness makes for an ardent favourite among listeners and a gateway entry towards underground music.

The love given to the songs from the sixties when many of the musicians are children or teenagers make for one big nostalgic contrast for its time. Whereas the songs from the psychedelic period express an idyllic or fantastical portrayal of life, the Paisley Underground’s songwriting tends to be underpinned by a relative sense of cynicism. Many of the songs back in the sixties tend to offer surrealistic lyrics that are reliant on the subtext of drug experimentation. On the other hand, the Paisley Underground scene does away with such references; there’s greater emphasis on young adult anxieties and alienation. 

In Davis-borne Game Theory’s magnum opus Lolita Nation, main lyricist, lead vocalist, and guitarist Scott Miller sings of work disillusionment, growing up, teenage love, and responsibilities. His deft literary approach in how he writes his music drew favourable comparisons toward contemporaries like Morrissey of the Smith’s fame who were acclaimed for being the symbol of the lower classes. In Miller’s case, he embodies the college-educated young adults who find their future to either be grim at best or outright hopeless under the then-presidency of Ronald Reagan. Such is at least owed to the anti-establishmentism of punk music.

Of course, there are still references to drugs as noted in the Dream Syndicate’s most notable album, The Days of Wine and Roses. Songs like ‘Definitely Clean’ and ‘Halloween’ are reminiscent of the Velvet Underground’s more upfront representation on drugs albeit with a stronger sense of subtext. The lack of any fanciful metaphors or eccentric semantic fields from Steve Wynn infers suspense around the risk of relapsing even within the 60s’-tinged music. The prominence of such lies in the context of Los Angeles’s network of substance abuse that gives it negative attention. With the ironic title taken from the Decadent poet Ernest Dowson, the Dream Syndicate’s legacy as the one band that introduced the Paisley Underground as a scene is funny given how its more drugs-related songs are subtly critical of it.

Despite its popularity within California, the Paisley Underground’s inherently niche appeal makes it financially unsustainable as a full-time career for most bands. Minus the likes of Opal who had reformed to become the dream pop-focused Mazzy Star, many broke up either at the end of the 80s or very early in the 90s. The dissipation of the tensions in the Cold War lends credence towards the rough-edged angst of grunge with its more explicitly depressive lyrics rather than power/jangle pop’s potential dissonances. Fans of music are looking to rather move forward towards fresher takes on guitar rock than linger in the remains of the 60s.

Having gone through numerous changes in the lineup, the change in sound within Game Theory in 1990 forced Miller to rebrand to the overlooked Loud Family before disbanding in 2006. He had then focused on his career in engineering although he remained a prominent voice in indie music and music criticism with his blog. He had even written an influential book called Music: What Happened which summarily puts emphasis on more personal commentary, a slight angle of music theory, and getting the readers to feel invested in the writings. In his passing, Miller had left a legacy as one of the greatest singer-songwriters of his time whose legacy had long outshone his meagre reputation during his lifetime.

Meanwhile, the Bangles’ rise to fame lets them become more well-known than virtually everyone in the scene put together. Their skyrocketing popularity enabled them to write hit songs such as 1986’s ‘Manic Mondays’ or 1989’s ‘Eternal Flame’ before taking a hiatus at the end of the decade before continuing altogether in 1996. In thinking about her time as a major voice of the scene, lead singer and guitarist Vicki Peterson wistfully said that “There was something about it that made us feel like we don’t want it to be quite over yet.”

The Dream Syndicate’s separation with bassist Kendra Smith led to the band struggling to match their debut’s reputation for the rest of their original run before breaking up in 1989. With a reunion for a tour-centric focus in 2012, the band finally gets to release their new records regularly since 2017 even if they tend to fall short of their legacy. Wynn had otherwise not minded such shortcomings as he thought of making more albums with his band as “kind of a rebirth” from the past in favour of forwarding in the future.

The bittersweet nature of the Paisley Underground’s dissolution does little to halt its legacy. In addition to pushing the then-fledgling neo-psychedelia genre to its logical conclusion, the scene plants a seed for the new generation to appreciate power/jangle pop. Chances are, Weezer might not have garnered the certain alt-rock appeal to stand out against grunge on their debut without the excitement of the scene’s sounds. Funk and RnB master Prince was popularly said to be influenced by it on his 1985 album Around the World in a Day which was supported by his signing of the Three O’Clock into his record label (that just so happened to be named Paisley Park). While the listeners might have outgrown the anxieties of their growing responsibilities, the scene does not miss its chance to leave a mark in music.