Bono says U2 may no longer make music “for the many” as he reflects on the band’s decades-long pursuit of pop hits ahead of ‘Carnaval De Luz.’ CANNES, FRANCE – MAY 17: Bono during the “Bono: Stories Of Surrender” photocall at the 78th annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 17, 2025 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Lionel Hahn/Getty Images)
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There comes a point in the career of all major musical artists when the hits stop hitting like they once did, even if the star continues to shine brightly in nearly every other way. The singer or band can still sell out arenas and stadiums, move huge numbers of albums, and even generate headlines whenever they return with new music, but scoring the kind of ubiquitous pop single that once seemed almost routine becomes much harder, if not all but impossible.
Bono is unusually candid about that reality in a new Rolling Stone feature on U2. That honesty is striking coming from the leader of a band that has spent decades crossing from rock into the mainstream, scoring hits throughout four different decades and repeatedly proving that longevity didn’t have to mean retreating entirely into the past. Now, as U2 prepares its first full-length of entirely new material in nine years, Bono seems to be reconsidering what success for a new piece of music means to him these days.
Bono Admits He Wants U2 to Keep Scoring Hits
Plenty of veteran artists eventually suggest that charts and radio never mattered much to them. Bono doesn’t pretend that was the case.
“I wanted to hear our songs on the radio,” he states in the Rolling Stone article while discussing his long-running desire to write the perfect pop song. That admission hits differently when it comes from Bono. U2 wasn’t only a huge touring act with a loyal rock audience or a group that enjoyed a short commercial heyday.
The band lived on American pop radio for decades, racking up a total of 17 top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, beginning in the 1980s and continuing into the ’90s, 2000s and 2010s. “With or Without You” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” both reached No. 1, while fellow smashes like“One,” “Mysterious Ways,” “Beautiful Day” and “Vertigo” kept the group rocking high. Once an act reaches the charts and manages to return over and over again, it can be difficult to imagine a time when that won’t be the case.
U2 Hasn’t Scored Its Own Billboard Hot 100 Hit In Years
Eventually, the marketplace moved on, as it always does. Tastes change and audiences grow younger and younger.
“Get On Your Boots” stands as U2’s last lead-artist top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, and it reached the roster back in 2009, when it peaked at No. 37. Follow-up “Magnificent” only rose as high as No. 79 shortly after that initial win, and it remains the band’s most recent appearance on the ranking with U2 billed as the lead act.
Kendrick Lamar’s “XXX.,” which features the group, returned U2 to the Billboard Hot 100 in 2017, but that was somebody else’s single – though it did crack the top 40 in 2017. Technically, that track is U2’s most recent appearance inside the tier that typically defines when a charting song becomes a real hit, but die-hard fans may attach an asterisk to the cut’s performance.
U2’s lack of a top 40 smash on the Billboard Hot 100 doesn’t mean that the group stopped being commercially successful. Songs of Experience debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2017, and Songs of Surrender reached No. 5 half a dozen years later. “Atomic City” missed the Billboard Hot 100 entirely in 2023, but it appeared on 10 other Billboard charts and became another No. 1 for the Irish outfit on one of the company’s radio tallies.
The band can still score hits these days, but they’re largely aimed at a rock-loving audience and older crowds that have followed U2 for decades – and they don’t often rise to the heights the Grammy winners had become accustomed to.
Bono Is Changing How He Measures Success
After decades spent chasing songs that could reach the masses and working hard to be the frontman of the biggest band in the world, Bono tells Rolling Stone that these days, “the song is its own reward.” He goes even further when discussing the audience for some of U2’s new material, adding, “It’s just for the few, not for the many.”
Those statements are surprisingly revealing from somebody who spent so much of his career trying to make ambitious rock music serve as mass pop culture – and who succeeded at it. Bono’s quotes don’t feel like they’re tinged with bitterness about aging out of hitting the Billboard Hot 100. They sound more like an acceptance that a song can work even if it never comes close to matching “With or Without You” or “Desire.”
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