'No Line,' no hit? U2, Bono confront changing times in the music industry

Even while maintaining its status as one of the few musical acts that can still fill stadiums, U2 is struck by how quickly its world is changing - musically and politically.

Charismatic frontman Bono, in a reflective mood as U2 closed the North American leg of its "360" tour, notes the different, more polarized atmosphere in the United States since the band performed its anthem, "City of Blinding Lights," at President Obama's inauguration in January.

Meanwhile, Bono the rock star and the rest of U2 are struggling a bit themselves - as incongruous as that might seem for a band that will have performed to millions of people before its tour wraps overseas next year. (U2 ended its North American tour this week in Vancouver, British Columbia.)

Like other bands in the digital age, U2 is struggling to grab new listeners. Its members admit to frustration at the average album sales for its most recent release and wonder, as bassist Adam Clayton put it, whether the idea of an impassioned rock 'n' roll fan is becoming a thing of the past. (One experiment - U2 broadcasted one of its concerts in Los Angeles on YouTube.com.)

"The commercial challenges have to be confronted," Clayton says during an interview backstage at "Saturday Night Live," where the band performed on the show's season kickoff. "But I think, in a sense, the more interesting challenge is, 'What is rock 'n' roll in this changing world?' Because, to some extent, the concept of the music fan - the concept of the person who buys music and listens to music for the pleasure of music itself - is an outdated idea."

The band's latest CD, "No Line on the Horizon," debuted at the top of the charts when it was released in March and has sold a respectable 1 million, according to Nielsen SoundScan. But the CD, which features more electronic music experimentation from U2, is the group's lowest selling CD in more than a decade. It represents a marked drop from 2004's "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb," which has sold 3.2 million copies to date, and 2000's 4.3 million seller, "All That You Can't Leave Behind."

"No Line" is also an album that hasn't had that one signature hit.

U2's last CD had "Vertigo," which wasn't a huge song on the pop charts, but became so ubiquitous thanks to Apple's iPod commercial that it might as well have been a No. 1 smash.

The first single from "No Line" - the driving, upbeat "Get on Your Boots" - didn't have a similar platform and didn't crack Billboard's top 30 singles pop chart. Meanwhile, "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" was featured in a Blackberry ad as part of the new partnership between the mobile device and U2 but was not released as a single.

Songs from the new album are clearly resonating with die-hard fans. Yet the album hasn't had the impact for which U2 had hoped.

While noting that signature U2 songs such as "Beautiful Day" and even "One" weren't massive or immediate hits, Bono does acknowledge disappointment that the band didn't quite "pull off the pop songs" with the new work.

"But we weren't really in that mindset," he says, "and we felt that the album was a kind of an almost extinct species, and we should approach it in totality and create a mood and a feeling, and a beginning, middle and an end. And I suppose we've made a work that is a bit challenging for people who have grown up on a diet of pop stars."

Some would argue that the Irish rockers - Bono, Clayton, The Edge and Larry Mullen Jr. - remain pop's biggest act. They are entering their fourth decade of music-making with a string of awards, from Grammys to Billboard to Golden Globes, tens of millions of records sold and a social impact that few musical acts can ever hope to achieve. Still, they find themselves in the same challenging position as most pop groups today, who must seek new ways to connect with music buyers in a declining industry and an increasingly fractious entertainment world.

U2's "360" tour - which included two Chicago shows last month ­- is a massive undertaking that has the band performing in the center of stadiums, hence the "360" title. The production, which includes stages that take days to dismantle, has been one of the top grossing tours in the country, despite a price tag that runs upward of $250 (at least 10,000 tickets for $30 have been made available for every show).

"In many ways, U2 has had such an enormous amount of success over the years we're almost proof against that," the band's longtime manager, Paul McGuinness, says, talking about U2 and the music industry's decline. "We're still selling a lot of recorded music, but it's a much smaller part of our business than playing live. This tour, by the time it's finished, we would have played ... to roughly 6 million people."

It is during live shows when U2 feels the most connection with its audience. Despite the stadium shows and the immense stage structure, the band insists that this time, the set up has created perhaps a greater intimacy with fans than the group has enjoyed in the past. They are literally surrounded by fans.

"The staging itself is something we've tried to do for a long, long time. The idea of playing 360 - it's never been done successfully, ... where everybody gets good sound and good visuals, and we managed to achieve that, I think," says Mullen.

"The thing about U2 has always been its audience, and in this environment, I think the audience is so important, and the reaction is so important," he says.

On tour, U2 can best gauge fan reaction to the new material. Last month at the cavernous Gillette Stadium near Boston, it was almost as frenzied and passionate as the reaction U2 gets for its classics. A roar came from the crowd as the band opened the show with "Magnificent," and the energy kept building as U2 performed four more new songs, including "Get on Your Boots."

"Judging by the reaction to the album, live, I feel like it has really connected," The Edge says. "There's a lot of records that make great first impressions. There might be one song that gets to be big on the radio, but they're not albums that people ... play a lot.

"This is one that I gather from talking to people. ... Four months later, they're saying, 'I'm really getting into the album now."'