Taylor Swift pulled out all the stops for her latest single, “Me!”

She teased the song’s release for two weeks, then formally announced it with an appearance during ABC’s coverage of the N.F.L. draft. Its release on April 26 received wall-to-wall news coverage, and Swift spent the next week promoting it, through a performance at the Billboard Music Awards and a series of merchandise and music offers on her website, including four vinyl versions and even an autographed CD single.

But once all the numbers were tallied, “Me!” — which features Brendon Urie of the band Panic! at the Disco — was still held back from No. 1 by this year’s oddest musical juggernaut: “Old Town Road,” the “country-trap” hybrid by Lil Nas X, which notched its fifth week at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

“Me!” starts at No. 2.

Positions on the Hot 100, Billboard’s flagship singles chart, are computed through a mix of sales, streaming numbers and radio airplay. And while “Me!” had the most sales for the week — 206,000 copies sold, compared with 88,000 for Lil Nas X, according to Nielsen — it was handily beaten by “Old Town Road” in both streams and airplay.

“Old Town Road” had 103 million streams in the United States last week — its third in a row with north of 100 million — while “Me!” was just under 51 million. “Old Town Road,” which at first was ignored by radio, was played 10,750 times on American stations last week; “Me!” was spun 7,854 times. (If you turned on the radio, though, you had a better chance of hearing Post Malone’s “Wow,” which was played 12,443 times.)