SHE’S SLIPPING, SHE’S FALLEN AND HE’S DISAPPEARED

If it’s any consolation to Janet Jackson, Wynonna and Coolio, they won’t be alone in losing their commercial footing this fall.

Other artists are also sure to stumble along the path to gold and multi-platinum in the coming weeks as the record industry trots out its behemoths for the annual holiday sales rush, which traditionally kicks off Thanksgiving weekend.

Retailers, who rely on the last six weeks of the year for nearly a quarter of their annual sales, are counting on a slew of brand-new and upcoming releases to line their Christmas stockings with cash, including potential blockbusters by mega-sellers such as Garth Brooks, 2Pac, Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand, Shania Twain and Metallica.

Also out now or due soon are greatest-hits packages from Kenny G, Sting, John Mellencamp and Enya, a live album from Led Zeppelin, a holiday collection from the teen trio Hanson and a rap compilation featuring hip-hop’s biggest names offering their versions of classic rap hits.

Meanwhile, new albums by Mariah Carey and LeAnn Rimes have held their positions among the Top 10 for more than two months. And the Spice Girls’ new “Spiceworld,” after selling 83,000 copies during a disappointing first week, rebounded in its second week to sell more than 100,000 copies.

“We’re very, very excited,” says Scott Levin, director of audio marketing for the Musicland Group, the nation’s largest record retailer. “We have aggressive marketing plans in place, more aggressive than we’ve had in the last couple years, because the release schedule is lining up so well.”

Christmas came early for retailers in the form of two late additions to the schedule: Brooks’ long-delayed “Sevens” and 2Pac’s two-disc “R U Still Down? (Remember Me).” Both packages are due Tuesday, in time for a Thanksgiving showdown of two of the most commercially successful artists of the ‘90s.

Brooks is the biggest-selling solo artist ever in the United States, with 62 million albums sold in eight years. 2Pac’s records, though, have been even hotter in recent years, especially since he was fatally shot in Las Vegas 14 months ago.

His posthumous album, last year’s “Makaveli: The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory,” has sold more than 3 million copies. Even the soundtracks to the box-office flops “Gridlock’d” and “Gang Related,” which included only a handful of 2Pac songs, sold well enough to enter the pop chart at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively.

The new album, which features more than two dozen songs recorded by the rapper between 1991 and 1994, while he was still under contract to Interscope Records, is being released on Amaru Records, a new label started by his mother, Afeni Shakur. (Tupac Shakur’s estate was given creative control earlier this year over all of 2Pac’s Interscope material.)

The first single from the album, “I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto,” was released to radio Nov. 10 and has ranked among the Top 40 most frequently played songs on urban radio during the last two weeks.

The video, which will be shipped to MTV and other outlets on Monday, does not feature images of Shakur but plays up the long-dismissed theory that he may have faked his death, suggesting that he is living in a government facility in New Mexico.

Brooks’ album, meanwhile, arrives in stores three months after its originally planned Aug. 7 launch, after a long battle between the singer and Capitol Records in which Brooks held back the release of the record. Brooks has continued touring despite the disagreement, setting box-office records almost everywhere he plays.

Will the delay hurt the album’s chances for success?

“Not a bit,” says Gary Arnold, vice president of marketing for the Best Buy chain. “This guy just continues to deliver content that the fans embrace hugely.”

But, as retailers saw last year, when a year-old album by an upstart Orange County band called No Doubt ruled the sales chart during the holiday season while newer releases by Pearl Jam and R.E.M. seemed glued to the shelves, big-name acts don’t always translate to big-time sales.

“Labels always expect that it’s the big new releases that are going to really sell at Christmastime, but that’s not necessarily true,” says Bob Bell, a buyer for the Wherehouse chain. “Since you’re dealing with a more casual music consumer at this time of year, you often see a lot of albums that have been out for a while do very well at Christmas.”

Last year, for instance, No Doubt’s “Tragic Kingdom” sold nearly 2 million copies during a six-week period between Nov. 25 and year’s end, while Pearl Jam’s “No Code” and R.E.M.’s “New Adventures in Hi-Fi” sold a combined 400,000 copies during the same period.

A similar scenario could unfold this fall, with underdogs emerging as winners.

Although older albums by upstarts like Aqua, Chumbawamba, Matchbox 20 and--in one of the year’s biggest surprises--the reunited Fleetwood Mac continue to sell strongly, highly anticipated late-summer and fall releases from previous best sellers like Salt-N-Pepa, Wynonna, Bobby Brown and Coolio are lagging.

And Janet Jackson’s “The Velvet Rope,” which entered the pop chart at No. 1 last month and was expected to remain among the Top 10 through the holidays, has already fallen out of the Top 20.

“She’s not taking the steps to get in touch with her audience,” says Damion Young, music director at L.A. radio station KPWR-FM (105.9), who was unhappy with “Got ‘Til It’s Gone,” the Joni Mitchell-sampled first single from Jackson’s album. “Everybody is still kept at arm’s length, whereas you have somebody like Mariah [Carey] doing radio and TV promotions. . . .

“Before, Janet could just put an album out and--voila!--it’s huge. But there are too many other artists out there now.”

“Rope” could rally, of course. “Together Again,” the album’s second single, has been more warmly received by radio than “Got ‘Til It’s Gone.” And, as Coolio could tell Jackson, things could be a lot worse.

The rapper’s “My Soul,” released last August as the follow-up to his 2.6 million-selling “Gangsta’s Paradise,” fell out of the Top 200 two months ago, and sales have stalled at about 150,000 copies--at a time when rap’s selling power has never been greater.

“It just didn’t have the street vibe,” KPWR’s Young says of the Coolio record. “It was too pop.”

Despite a heavy promotional push, Salt-N-Pepa’s “Brand New” has also received a tepid response from consumers, selling only 90,000 copies during its first four weeks in stores.

Wynonna’s “The Other Side” has fared only slightly better.

One retailer says the poor performance of the Wynonna record may be the result of an uninspiring performance by the singer at the nationally televised Country Music Assn. awards show on the eve of the album’s release.

“It killed her,” he says. “This was her big coming out, and she looked pretty disheveled. We had a guy there, and he came back and said jokingly, but somewhat seriously, ‘We should cut our Wynonna order in half, if not more.’ He was that disheartened.”

Mariama Snider, music director at L.A. radio station KKBT-FM (92.3), says it’s the music that stalled the Salt-N-Pepa album.

“We didn’t get too many calls for the first single,” she says. “And after about three weeks, the calls died out altogether.”

Still, despite the lessons learned from Pearl Jam, R.E.M. and, earlier this year, the disappointing sales of U2’s “Pop,” which dropped out of the Top 200 in mid-September though it had been counted on to remain on the charts through the holidays, retailers can’t help themselves in predicting big sales for Brooks, 2Pac, Dion and all the other fourth-quarter arrivals.

“It’s a very unpredictable time in the record business, and we’ve learned that there are no sure things, no matter how big the name,” says the Wherehouse’s Bell. “But some things are more sure than others.”