Russia On The Run

Russian forces in Ukraine were on the run Monday across a broad swath of the frontline, as the Ukrainian military pressed its blitz offensive in the east and made gains in the south, belying Vladimir Putin’s claims to absorb into Russia territories that his armies are steadily losing, as the NYT reports.

Brazilian Runoff

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro secured 43.2% of the vote in the first round of presidential elections, more than 51 million votes and almost 10 percentage points more than some polls had predicted. He still fell short of his rival, leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who got 48.4%, which triggers a runoff vote at the end of October, as the WSJ reports.

Iran’s Khamenei blames US and Israel for street protests

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has accused the US and Israel of masterminding anti-regime protests prompted by the death in police custody of a young woman arrested for allegedly violating the Islamic dress code, as the FT reports.

Executive Education

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Video Shorts

Check out CSIS’s new series of video shorts: “Data Unpacked,” “Testify,” “What's Happening,” “Preview,” and “High Resolution.” And don’t forget to subscribe to the CSIS YouTube Channel!

In That Number

60 million

President Biden traveled to Puerto Rico on Monday and announced $60 million in funding to help repair levees, mend storm walls and create a flood warning system to prepare for future storms.

Source: The New York Times

Critical Quote

“These riots and insecurities have been engineered by the US and the fake Zionist regime while those on their payrolls and some expatriate Iranian traitors helped them.”

— Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

iDeas Lab

Last week, the CSIS Project on Prosperity and Development published an interactive report on the future of Digital Financial Inclusion. Read the full report here.

The Andreas C. Dracopoulos iDeas Lab at CSIS enhances our research with the latest in cutting-edge web technologies, design, and multimedia.

Optics

(Photo credit: Miguel Schincariol/Getty Images.) Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazilian former President and candidate for the leftist Workers Party, waves to supporters after learning the results of the legislative and presidential election in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on October 2, 2022.

This Town Tomorrow

At 10:00 a.m., Brookings hosts a conversation on how the upcoming changes in Chinese leadership will impact China’s domestic development.

And, at 11:00 a.m. the Wilson Center and the U.S. Agency for International Development discuss what better looks like when it comes to mining, processing, recycling, and consuming critical mineral resources.

Later, at 12:00 p.m. the Middle East Institute hosts a conversation on the mid-2023 presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey.

Video

Last week, the CSIS Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program hosted His Excellency Zbigniew Rau, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland. Watch the ReCap here.

Podcasts

Dr. Eliot Cohen joins the podcast to discuss his recent visit to Kiev and meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky, his assessment of Polish efforts to help Ukraine and his analysis of Vladimir Putin’s next moves.

Listen on Spotify & Apple Podcasts.

Smiles

One of America’s most innovative artists may have harnessed a nascent formula for success in an age where selling music is a puzzling proposition. But hold that thought for a second…

According to the World Economic Forum, the global music industry is actually on a roll with revenues up by 20%. Growth has been driven by a surge in streaming, which now accounts for 65% of sales. Total streaming revenues rose in 2021 by 24.3% to reach $16.9 billion. Streaming now has 523 million subscribers to audio and video services, up from 443 million in 2020. Streaming is big business, and there’s so much great content out there old and new.

What’s even more surprising is that sales of CDs and vinyl records grew for the first time in 20 years with vinyl up by over 50%. I think home listening during the pandemic had something to do with this—personally I took the plunge and bought a high end Tivoli CD player, but didn’t dive into the deep end with a turntable purchase to resurrect what’s left of my LP collection. If you want to read a cool article about vinyl audio quality, check out this piece in the Washington Post “The Search For The Perfect Sound.”

This past weekend I visited The Sound Garden, an independent record store in the Fells Point neighborhood of Baltimore, and it certainly seemed like business was on the rise by both the inventory and amount of customers hanging out. The coolest part was that there were about 10 items I wanted to purchase, and I scored a rare Lucinda Williams CD. It still feels like a novelty though.

Back to the innovative artist I mentioned. With music and content as disaggregated as it is, creators need to come up with innovative ways to sell their wares. In the case of musicians, despite the promising numbers cited above, it’s not as simple as recording an album or song, and trying to get it played on the radio or MTV--remember MTV? Breaking through in a world chock full of new material being issued by the nanosecond is perplexing, even for established artists. If your music isn’t shocking or controversial and if you don’t have a cult of personality attached to your name, you need a strategy to engage the masses.

That’s exactly what American singer-songwriter Beck did last week when he dropped a cover version of Neil Young’s classic “Old Man.” Beck is a successful, and even influential artist, but he hasn’t exactly broken thru to a mass audience since the early 2000s with “Sea Change.” Last week, he tried out a strategy to promote “Old Man” by working with the NFL on an advertisement for the big Sunday night matchup between Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes, the old great versus the new great.

It was a powerful video promo and the NFL is probably America’s most captive audience. Talk about creating a buzz. If Beck had just released the cover without the NFL promo, most of us would have missed it entirely. Now, it’s a pop culture moment that people are thinking about. Even Neil Young is promoting it because he’s ticked off that his music was used for commercial purposes. Sorry Neil, Beck sounds really good.

I invite you to email me at [email protected] and follow me on Twitter @handrewschwartz

The Evening is my daily guide to key insights CSIS brings to the events of the day. It is composed with the External Relations team: Paige Montfort, Claire Dannenbaum, and Claire Smrt.