The Billboard album chart recovered from its '60s flashback of last

week, with thoroughly modern Janet Jackson's The Velvet Rope

debuting at the top spot and the rap-heavy soundtrack to the Tupac Shakur

film Gang Related hot on her heels.

The two relative whippersnappers sent veterans Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones packing out of the top 10, with Dylan's critically-acclaimed Time Out Of Mind falling from #10 to #18 and the Rolling Stones' not-so-acclaimed Bridges To Babylon sliding from #3 to #11. Both acts suffered a sales decline of about

47 percent.

Some classic rockers, however, did manage chart success this week, with Fleetwood Mac moving up a notch to #7 and the umpteenth post-mortem Jimi Hendrix collection South Saturn Delta debuting at #51.

The confessional, sexually charged Jackson album sold nearly 202,500 copies

in the week ending Oct. 12, according to SoundScan, 147,000 copies less than 1993's janet sold in its first week of release. The Gang Related soundtrack was a close second, selling just 2,000 less than The Velvet Rope. The film stars Jim Belushi and the late rapper Tupac Shakur in a role he completed just days before his still-unsolved drive-by murder in Las Vegas in September 1996. The soundtrack features four previously unreleased songs by Shakur, as well as tracks from Tha Dogg Pound's Daz and Kurupt, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Nate Dogg, the Outlawz and Ice Cube.

Everclear's So Much for the Afterglow, their follow-up to the platinum breakthrough Sparkle And Fade, debuted at #33, on sales of 34,000 copies. Sluggish sales of Oasis' Be Here Now seemed to have benefited from their two New York appearances last week, rising from #37 to #29 on SoundScan reported sales of 37,000. In addition, Chumbawamba's Tubthumper leaped from #48 to #31, and Smash Mouth's Fush Yu Mang jumped 10 spots to #23.

Meanwhile, "college rock" acts R.E.M. and the Pixies saw a rebirth on the charts

thanks to collections of obscurities and hits released by their former

record companies. R.E.M.'s rarities collection R.E.M. In The Attic, which the band did not have a hand in compiling, hit #185, while the two-CD hits/live collection Death To the Pixies made its mark at #180.

Last week's #1, LeAnn Rimes' You Light Up My Life, slipped to #3 with sales of 147,500. Filling in this week's top 10 were Boys II Men (#4), Soul Food soundtrack (#5), Mariah Carey (#6), Aqua (#8), Master P (#9) and Trisha Yearwood (#10). [Wed., Oct. 15, 1997, 6:00 p.m. PDT]