This year, 12 songs reached the top of the Billboard singles chart, known as the Hot 100, from Ed Sheeran’s meticulously constructed “Shape of You” to Cardi B’s casual “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves).” Including feature appearances, 14 acts had their first No. 1s, like the electronic dance veterans Daft Punk (as guests on The Weeknd’s “Starboy”) and the Philadelphia firecracker Lil Uzi Vert, whose verse on “Bad and Boujee,” by Migos, begins with “Yah!” yelped five straight times. The track with the longest run atop the heap — “Despacito,” by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, featuring Justin Bieber — was sung almost entirely in Spanish.

There were so many disrupters that cultural whiplash became the new normal. With album sales as well as track downloads in free fall, and hip-hop and R&B setting the pace for streaming, major labels and stars alike were left scrambling to earn honors that once came easily.

Below are some of the trends, tricks and standout moments, which will surely be built upon in the months to come.

Nothing streams like a rap banger. And nothing could motor a song up the charts this year — aside from event-releases from Sheeran, Swift and Bieber — quicker than a ton of internet-driven chatter. Using a sample week in November, Nielsen found that streaming was up 59 percent year over year, with 80.5 percent of all music consumption now happening digitally. The biggest beneficiaries were rap stars with loyal followings: Building on the meme-driven success of Rae Sremmurd’s “Black Beatles,” Migos’ “Bad and Boujee” hit No. 1 in January as “raindrop/drop top” jokes became a Twitter sensation.

Other rap smashes to score big this year — notably, with or without Top 40 radio support, which often came later, if at all — included Kendrick Lamar’s “Humble”; DJ Khaled’s “I’m the One,” featuring Quavo, Chance the Rapper, Lil Wayne and Bieber; “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves)”; and Post Malone’s “Rockstar,” featuring 21 Savage, which held the No. 1 spot for eight weeks.

Sometimes a grass-roots push, such as the loosely organized social media campaign to vault Cardi B over Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do,” wasn’t quite enough. In the case of “Rockstar,” which was a smash on Spotify and Apple Music, Post Malone also got an assist from his label, Republic Records, which found a loophole on YouTube: Free streams on YouTube do count toward Hot 100 placement — but instead of posting the entire song free, Republic uploaded a version of “Rockstar” that was exactly the same length as the actual track but featured only its chorus, looped again and again.

In its first few weeks, the video earned more than 40 million plays, contributing to the song’s reign on Billboard’s Streaming Songs chart, which preceded its peak on the Hot 100. The tactic had copycats — Big Sean’s “Pull Up N Wreck,” for one — though YouTube has since changed its rules.

Warning: It might not work for everyone. But for Swift, like Adele before her, this year was not yet time to follow the flock. By keeping her new album, “Reputation,” off streaming services for its first three weeks, Swift guaranteed herself an old-fashioned blockbuster, selling 1.2 million copies in her debut week.

The big-name remix, another tried-and-true maneuver that found new relevance this year, breathed extra life into a few big hits. “Despacito,” the pop-reggaeton game-changer, was already huge, especially on YouTube and the Spotify global chart, before Bieber’s verse was added. But the remix made it a supernova that led the Hot 100 for a record-tying 16 straight weeks and earned Grammy nominations for record and song of the year. Beyonce provided a similar bit of magic to J Balvin’s “Mi Gente,” lifting it up to No. 3 from No. 21; she later jumped on Sheeran’s “Perfect,” taking it all the way to No. 1. More quietly, Cardi B’s “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves)” got a crunchtime bump from a Spanish-language remix and one featuring Kodak Black, both of which counted toward the main version’s chart position as it reached its apex.

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