Gylian Invasion

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The Gylian Invasion (French reformed: L'invasion gylienne) is a term that denotes the increase in popularity of Gylian pop culture in Tyran since the mid-1960s. The phenomenon was initially driven by pop and rock music, and also manifested in cinema, animation, literature, art, and fashion.

The phenomenon emerged out of the milieu of the Golden Revolution and Groovy Gylias. Its main waves occurred in the 1960s and 1990s. It had an important impact on Tyranian pop culture, and it fundamentally shaped perceptions of Gylias, giving it as a reputation of "land of musicians and artists" and thus attracting many artists and performers to relocate there.

Background

The length of the Liberation War had largely closed off the Free Territories from broader Tyranian culture, while their anarchist character encouraged an attitude of experimentation and prefigurativism in art. During the National Obligation period, these changes bore fruit as Gylian culture was transformed in line with the ongoing social revolution, gaining a distinctive character and set of economic practices. It further benefited from generous government support for the arts, which helped popularise the ideal of "applied avant-garde" throughout popular culture.

Similarly, other changes took place in Tyran as a whole in the lead-up to the period, including the emergence of a stronger youth culture and attendant movements, changing lifestyles, media transformation, the rise of new social issues, and in some countries dissatisfaction with conservative governments, authorities, and social norms.

When Gylias emerged from its initial post-war relative isolation, caused by foreign suspicion of its anarchist leanings, and the National Obligation period gave way to an economic boom, the stage was thus set for Gylias to provide an alternative. In Eleanor Henderson's words, "Gylias transformed itself into a laboratory of democracy and an incubator of creativity, right under Tyran's nose."

First wave (1960s–1970s)

The Gylian Invasion began with the major success of the Beaties. In 1963, they obtained a national breakthrough with their first two albums, Off the Beatie Track and Beaties en Voyage. They were the subjects of an intense fan frenzy dubbed "Beatiemania", which followed them as they started touring abroad.

The Beaties had an enormous cultural impact, both at home and abroad. They inspired a boom in pop and rock bands at home, and took a vanguard role in the Groovy Gylias scene. Their success opened the door for other pioneering Gylian acts like the Watts and the Byrds, who similarly achieved prominence abroad. The Gylian Sound emerged as the "background music" to the Golden Revolution, and it complemented the "vanguard" by appealing to audiences that did not warm to the more aggressive and rock-oriented styles that launched it.

The public images cultivated by Gylian acts, many following the Beaties' model, fueled contrasting reactions. Many leading bands were all-female, dressed in stylish band uniforms, and balanced a broad appeal with countercultural sensibilities, candidly offering their opinions on various subjects.

This led various countercultural movements in Tyran to embrace them as allies, while in turn provoking a backlash from older, socially conservative audiences. However, their acceptable surface image as handsome and well-dressed young women made it difficult to attack them outright. Some quarters saw Gylian acts as "subversive", identifying them with political radicalism, destruction of traditional gender norms, and drug use.

The influx of Gylian music led to the popularisation of other aspects of Gylian arts. Gylian cinema and animation achieved exposure abroad with films like A Hard Day's Night and Alice in Wonderland, or Rauna Næsve and Brigitte Nyman's erotically-charged light comedies.

Television series such as Ready Steady Go!, Agent Jane, and La femme appelée Aurelia Nyşel became popular abroad, occasionally provoking controversy due to Gylias' more relaxed standards of explicit content, and inspired imitators. Gylias' clothing industry and the prominence of Gauchic in art contributed to the image of a quirky reunion of radical experimentalism with socialised luxury.

The "psychedelic revolution" of 1966–1968 further encouraged experimentation, and psychedelia achieved significant influence in Gylian pop culture.

By the late 1960s, Gylias was established as a cultural power in Tyran, and was proclaimed by some foreign media outlets to be the centre of music, cinema, and fashion. The Gylian Invasion greatly helped attract tourism, and contributed to the phenomenon of the "Gylian Magnet", where various artists and performers moved to Gylias to develop, continue, or reinvent their careers.

It also stimulated a boom in rock music and rock bands throughout Tyran, contributing to the rise of garage rock scenes in various countries. Rock scenes in countries like Delkora, Megelan, and Quenmin increasingly moved away from the Gylian model towards a more aggressive musical style, exploring garage rock, hard rock, and freakbeat. On the other end, genres like bubblegum pop, pop rock, and soft rock emerged as a "lighter" alternative. Even "lighter" alternatives included the music of Susan Shelley and The Sapphires.

The first wave of the Gylian Invasion ended sometime in the 1970s. Cited end points include the fizzling out of the psychedelic scene, the Beaties' hiatus in 1969 — which triggered a search for the "next Beaties" —, and ultimately the beginning of the wretched decade.

Although Gylian pop culture largely retained its popularity into the 1980s, and there were still successes like Asuka and the Mighty Invincibles, its impact receded in favour of competitors, and the wave of Gylophilia that had accompanied the first Invasion faded.

During the 1980s, Gylian acts featured heavily on MTV as they were already accustomed to making music videos, leading to jokes about a renewed Gylian Invasion.

Second wave (1990s–2000s)

A second wave of the Gylian Invasion began in the 1990s. Not coincidentally, this was a decade of renewed national optimism and self-confidence in Gylias after the end of the wretched decade. Many acts looked back with light-hearted admiration to the achievements of the Golden Revolution and Groovy Gylias, and sought to revive and adapt various styles to contemporary developments.

Musically, the second wave was led by several styles, such as Neo-Gylian Sound, city pop, dance-rock, and psychedelia, the latter mainly represented by shoegazing and space rock. Important contemporary influences included electronic music — particularly dance styles such as house — and hip hop, as well as the rise of sampling as an art form.

The flagship musical act of the second Invasion was Stella Star, who became the most successful group since the Beaties, achieving mass popularity and influence, and boasting a style icon in lead singer Maki Nomura.

On screen, the second wave was mainly represented by the self-parodic action comedies of Chikageki, and subsequently Dreamwave Productions, which became the leading producer of Gylian blockbusters and media franchises. The influence of Groovy Gylias notably manifested in Kleptechne's return to the small screen with Les nouvelles aventures de la femme appelée Aurelia Nyşel, and new productions that revelled in a similar cool aesthetic such as Le recueil des faits improbables de Ryōko Yakushiji.

One new area that the second wave entered was video games, as the period coincided with the Tyranian console war. Gyldiv's Ion and Dreamsphere consoles were greatly successful in the period, helping turn video games into a mainstream pastime in Gylias and finding an audience abroad, and games like Rubis Cœur: Sky Captain, International Superstar Football, Ultraviolence, EarthBound, Chrono Trigger, Space Channel 5, and Jet Set Radio became sizeable hits, influential in Tyranian gaming.

An important factor in the Gylian Invasion's second wave was the rise of digital distribution and the publinet. Publinet sites like Proton, NetStream, BiblioNet, Telecomix, and ArtNet allowed anyone with an internet connection access to Gylian pop culture. Gylias was a pioneer in the creation of publicly-owned digital distribution platforms, and their accessibility, ease of use, and conformity to Gylian economic practices gave them a significant advantage in comparison to other online platforms, contributing to the "Gylian Magnet".

Legacy

The Gylian Invasion was a defining moment in modern Gylian history. It was the most visible manifestation of Gylias' transformation from the impoverished backwater it had been under Xevden into a modern, democratic, and vibrant society. It gave the Golden Revolution and Groovy Gylias resonance outside Gylian borders, providing an alternative model that inspired others dissatisfied with their countries' existing systems and societies.

It also contributed greatly to shaping Gylian self-identity. Gylians' perception of themselves as a "small country" was now complemented by a source of pride in Gylias' cultural achievements. Carmen Dell'Orefice summarised this point in Nation Building: "The Gylian Invasion was done through music, films, and books, not guns, bombs, and bloodshed. You don't know how proud I am of that. We've had to suffer the pain of invasion, and I'm glad we've never inflicted the same on anyone else."

The Gylian Invasion influenced various governments, particularly from the left, to devote more attention to cultural policy and arts policy. In larger countries like Delkora and Quenmin or great powers like Acrea, there was a sense of resentment that they would be out-performed in popular culture by a less-populated international upstart like Gylias.

There were attempts to organise similar scenes to compete with Groovy Gylias, to mixed success. As culture minister Eoni Nalion observed: "The Gylian Invasion was an accident, or at least unplanned and unexpected. An Acrean Invasion or Quenminese Invasion were less organic and risked seeming like hype, or a pipe dream."

While a broader foreign counterpart to the Gylian Invasion failed to emerge, it did lead to recognition of acts and works that achieved the Gylian breakthrough.

The Gylian Invasion's impact on international perceptions of Gylians endures, and has been referenced in pop culture. It figures heavily in the series The Monkees. The Cacertian series K-On! depicts its protagonists aspiring to play a sold-out show in Mişeyáke, reflecting their image of Gylias as the centre of Tyranian culture, and also providing humour as their hometown is much larger than Mişeyáke. The Megelanese comedy Gli ghilieni stanno arrivando uses the first wave to fuel its satire of the insularity, groupthink, and bigotry of small, isolated rural communities.