If the top of the Billboard Hot 100 this year has been deadeningly constant — Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” has been No. 1 for 18 weeks — the rapid churn at the top of the album chart has told a rowdier and truer tale about what’s happening in contemporary pop music.

So far, 24 different albums have been No. 1, none for more than two consecutive weeks. A No. 1 album these days indicates popularity, but also the power of release-week shenanigans: As major stars move toward short-notice album-drop strategies rather than extended rollout periods, they look for open windows that will all but ensure they’ll debut at No. 1. (Merchandise and ticket bundles frequently figure into the equation.)

Undoubtedly, then, Chance the Rapper was surprised to learn that his new album, “The Big Day,” was bested by “The Search” by NF, a white rapper from Michigan who got his start in the world of Christian rap.

As a stand-alone event, it’s not particularly meaningful: Chance is, broadly speaking, far more popular than NF. And yet an NF victory demonstrated roughly the same thing as a hypothetical Chance victory would have — a triumph for a certain style of intricate rapping, intermittently popular over the years but not particularly in vogue right now, and a certain moral value set that’s also not terribly in style.