Kings of Leon’s rock and roll journey has taken them from an NFT to the NFL.

The band visited Cleveland’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on Thursday (April 29) to see a new exhibit featuring their venture into cryptocurrency before they opened the NFL draft with their first live show in more than a year.

“I hope we don’t look too excited to be up there,” said lead singer Caleb Followill.

“I hope we don’t play a song a linebacker doesn’t like and he decides to come out and take us out,” joked drummer Nathan Followill.

(You can watch their performance of “Use Somebody” at the NFL draft on Thursday night below and judge for yourself.)

In March, Kings of Leon — brothers Caleb, Nathan and Jared Followill and their cousin, Matthew — made history by releasing their eighth studio album, When You See Yourself, as a non-fungible token or NFT, a digital form of currency that can only be used in its own ecosystem.

Sound confusing? Well, even the band wasn’t sure what it was getting into with its pioneering move.

“We had to study up a little bit, and it’s still a little beyond me,” Caleb said before the band toured the hall. “We didn’t know that much about it, but we were happy to be introduced to it.”

Nathan Followill had some familiarity with cryptocurrency, but wasn’t quite up to date on NFTs or all their possibilities.

“I think it’s the way of the future, not only for music but you’re seeing sport cards in the form of NFTs, artists putting their work through NFT,” he said. “So not just for music, but for art and I think it will definitely have a place.”

The band is giving a “significant” portion of proceeds from the NFTs to Live Nation’s Crew Nation fund, a charity that supports workers in the music industry hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Greg Harris, the Rock Hall’s president and CEO, applauded the band’s willingness to try something new.

“Rock and Roll is always pushing the envelope and doing new things,” Harris said. “So when Les Paul invented the solid body electric guitar, he was pushing it. When Jimi Hendrix was playing, he was pushing the envelope. Now we’re pushing the envelope with technology and distribution.”

The band’s visit also coincided with a new football-themed exhibit at the hall, “The Biggest Show on Turf: 55 Years of Halftime Shows,” showcasing the evolution of Super Bowl halftimes.

Among the items on display is the outfit Prince wore in 2007, when his rain-soaked performance ended with a soul-stirring “Purple Rain,” to the jacket worn by U2′s Bono in 2002 in a show paying tribute to the victims of the 9/11 attacks.

Now that they’ve played the draft, would Kings of Leon ever consider playing a Super Bowl.

“I don’t think they would ever ask us,” Matthew said. “We’re not that kind of entertainer. We would do it, but we would start rehearsing now for 10 years from now.”

And since he was in Cleveland, Nathan Followill made sure to give some love to Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield. The Followills grew up in Oklahoma and have followed Mayfield, who won the Heisman Trophy in 2017 with the Sooners.

“I’ve got my Browns’ Baker jersey at home,” he said. “I follow all the Oklahoma guys on whatever team they go to, but I’m a big Baker fan.”

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Spotify stock fell as much as 12.9% to $256.84 on Wednesday (April 28) after the streaming service decreased its forecasted listener count for the end of 2021. Share prices ended the day down 12.3% at $256.84.

The considerable drop followed Spotify’s first quarter 2021 earnings report, a mix of encouraging trends and subtle misses. The company’s guidance for end-of-year listeners, referred to as monthly average listeners, decreased by a mere 5 million — from a range of 407 million to 427 million down to 402 million to 427 million.

That adjustment followed Spotify’s reported first-quarter monthly active users (MAU) of 356 million, falling on the bottom end of earlier guidance.

There was good news too, though. First-quarter subscriptions were at the high end of guidance, and Spotify did not revise its 2021 guidance for subscribers (172 million to 184 million), suggesting it expects the dip to come from “freemium” listeners. Average revenue per month on those free listeners is 0.35 euros ($0.42), compared to subscribers’ 4.07 euros ($4.94) per month. (Subscribers account for about 90% of the company’s total revenue.)

That MAU adjustment could have a larger financial impact in the future, as Spotify uses its freemium business model to acquire new subscribers. So, fewer free listeners this year means there will be fewer potential subscribers in the future.

Chopping $7.2 billion from Spotify’s market capitalization is an overreaction, according to Brian White at Monness Crespi Hardt. White wrote in a note to investors on Wednesday that he believes Spotify’s fundamentals remain strong and Wednesday’s sell-off is a good buying opportunity. “We have found the market often takes issue with a particular data point during a Spotify earnings call and the stock subsequently plummets,” he said.

How big was investors’ reaction? Compared to the plummet in market capitalization, the financial impact is a drop in the ocean. In simple terms, the revenue loss from a 5 million decrease in free listeners is worth just €20.8 million for all of 2021, or 0.2% of annual revenue, according to Billboard’s estimate.

Of course, many factors could be behind the price drop. MAU growth in Latin America and Southeast Asia has slowed after they were “strong outperformers,” CEO Daniel Ek said in Wednesday’s earnings call. Average revenue per user (ARPU) fell 1% to 4.12 euros ($5.00) per month and has consistently fallen because more subscribers buy family plans, which allow up to six people on one account, and expansion into new markets with lower prices.

ARPU is a messy metric for gauging a subscription service’s performance — Spotify would point out that family plans have lower churn rates, which directly impact a subscriber’s value. Nevertheless, ARPU is a highly visible and closely followed metric.

JP Morgan’s Doug Anmuth is still upbeat about Spotify, especially about opportunities to engage listeners with new services such as Locker Room. Even so, Anmuth dropped his price target from $385 to $330 because of “mixed results” in a note to investors on Wednesday. White, calling MAU concerns “nothing more than noise,” maintained his price target at $380.

Investors have been excited by news of podcast acquisitions and deals for exclusive and original content with the hopes spoken-word audio would improve their margins that stem mostly from music companies’ royalties demands. Spotify’s exclusive licensing with The Joe Rogan Experience, its top podcast in numerous markets, started in December. It rolls out one original podcast series after another, most notably Renegades: Born in the USA with Bruce Springsteen and Barrack Obama, which premiered Feb. 19.

Spotify’s share price began 2021 at $317.42 and rose to $387.44 on Feb. 19 before falling as low as $249.00 on March 30 — a 35.7% tumble in just 39 days.