SoCal pop-punkers Offspring held firmly in the top 5 this past week with Americana (#4), but fell short of overcoming teen-oriented pop acts at the chart's highest reaches.

Radio-friendly pop, late-1980s style, proved alive and well this past week as bubblegum acts Britney Spears and 'N Sync, respectively, landed the top two spots on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

Newcomer Spears' debut effort ...Baby One More Time, sold 120,567 copies in its first week of release, according to sales tracker SoundScan.That was enough sales power to unseat the previous chart champion, New York-based rapper DMX, from the top spot.

DMX's Flesh of My Flesh-Blood of My Blood, already platinum in its fourth week of release, dropped to #3 with 110,821 copies sold. It had held the #1 spot for three consecutive weeks.

Meanwhile, all-male pop group 'N Sync's steadily rising, self-titled first album sold 113,047 copies to place second -- up from the sixth position the week before -- after 10 months on the market.

The highest-charting rock album was the Offspring's fourth album, Americana, which held its position as it continued to sell well in its third month on the charts.

"I like that each song is just sort of a snapshot of what's going on today," lead singer Dexter Holland said of the album. "It seemed to kind-of fit into this idea of Americana, which has all these glossy connotations of Norman Rockwell and white picket fences."

Karen Pearson, the manager of Amoeba Music in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, said that last week the album placed at #95 on the store's own list of its 100 top-selling albums. But, Pearson added, the band is popular among customers for its "thumb-your-nose-at-authority, quirky, intelligent" sound.

"There's these trends that go up and down," she said. "Next week, it will come back."

The week's rock debuts performed modestly, with Sugar Ray's 14:59 -- the pop-rockers' full-length follow-up to their smash 1997 radio hit "Fly" (RealAudio excerpt) -- finishing at #19, and classic rockers the Black Crowes placing 26th with their fifth release, By Your Side.

Jailed rapper Keith Murray's newest album, It's a Beautiful Thing, debuted at #39 with more than 39,000 copies sold. Murray turned himself in to authorities in New Britain, Conn., in late October to begin serving a prison sentence for an assault conviction stemming from a 1996 barroom brawl.

The week's most long-awaited chart debut came from pop songwriters Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach, whose first full-length collaboration, Painted From Memory, was released last fall, but makes its first chart appearance this week at #185.

The strong showing by Spears, a 17-year-old native of Kentwood, La. (estimated population 1,200), was made possible, in part, by the success of her first single, "One More Time," the #1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks.

Coincidentally, Spears just completed an arena tour with 'N Sync Tuesday.

Rey Roldan, a publicist for Jive, Spears' label, said the singer was delighted by the #1 ranking.

"She flipped," he said. "She found out last night."

Roldan said Spears is the first female artist in history to have her first single and first album both reach the top position. He expressed hope that her success might help reshape the current pop field, which includes such guy-groups as the Backstreet Boys and Five.

"There was a lack of women's voices in teen-pop before this," Roldan said. "There hasn't been a pop voice of this caliber in a long time."

For the most part, the top 10 of the album chart was still dominated by hip-hop and country. After Offspring, soulful-rapper Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill fell to #5 after a one-week return to the second position. Hill was followed in the top 10 by Tupac Shakur's posthumous rap collection, Greatest Hits, at #6; platinum rapper Jay-Z's Vol. 2... Hard Knock Life (#7); country trio the Dixie Chicks' Wide Open Spaces (#8); pop-country diva Shania Twain's The Woman In Me (#9); and folk-pop songstress Jewel's Spirit (#10).

Garth Brooks' phenomenally selling Double Live moved out of the top 10, settling in at #17.

Waiting in the wings is former House of Pain member Everlast's Whitey Ford Sings the Blues, which surged from #24 to the #11 spot in two weeks. The album is the first release since House of Pain's 1996 breakup for Everlast (born Eric Schrody), whose "What It's Like" (RealAudio excerpt) continues to receive heavy radio airplay.

On the heels of a one-week boost from the announcement of nominations for the 1999 Grammy Awards, Hill, punk-pop quartet Hole and Madonna saw sales of their albums slip: Hole from #49 to #61; Madonna from #53 to #70.

Not all pop divas suffered such a cruel fate. Cher's newest album, Believe, enjoyed a single-week increase of 19,000 copies, boosting her from #57 to #32.

The nation's holiday fever appeared to subside, as holiday releases by Celine Dion and 'N Sync plummeted, the latter by nearly 100 spots: Dion's These Are Special Times was down from #37 to #91, while 'N Sync's Home for Christmas dropped from #23 to #119.

In contrast, the public's passion for professional wrestling continues to grow -- the World Wrestling Federation's Vol. 3 - WWF Music jumped 41 spots to #41, with more than 35,000 copies sold.