Barack Obama Archives

Earlier this week, President Barack Obama had a supportinig role in a new video by the Bawse. Now comes word Obama appears to have given the Boss a helping hand, too. According to Billboard, Bruce Springsteen's "We Take Care Of Our Own" saw a jump in sales after the president stepped away from the podium to the song following his speech at the Democratic National Convention on September 6. How big of a jump? The song's sales climbed by 409 percent, according to Billboard, with its 2,000 downloads sold for the week ending September 9 marking its best sales week since March. That's the month Springsteen released Wrecking Ball, the album that kicks off with "We Take Care of Our Own." Wrecking Ball, for its part, saw a 37 percent jump in sales to 3,000 units moved, climbing from No. 199 to No. 112 on the Billboard 200 chart. Springsteen's presidential bump comes after Obama outshone MTV's big night. The Viacom outfit's 2012 Video Music Awards, which took place the same night as the presidential speech, drew a paltry 6.1 million viewers. The current White House occupant's speech racked up more than twice that many viewers on NBC alone. Obama hasn't shied away from the music biz. Just this week, he cast doubt on the clueless idea that Nicki Minaj's lyric about being a Republican voting for Mitt Romney actually means she is a Republican voting for Mitt Romney — doubt that Minaj soon suggested was correct. In January, when Obama sang 10 seconds of Al Green's 1971 hit "Let's Stay Together," he boosted the song's sales by 490 percent. The record industry would surely be glad for any other publicity the prez decides to throw its way.