LATE ENTRIES

Several high-profile albums have been released this fall, among them Pearl Jam’s “No Code,” R.E.M.’s “New Adventures in Hi-Fi,” Kenny G’s “The Moment,” New Edition’s “Home Again,” Sheryl Crow’s “Sheryl Crow,” Counting Crows’ “Recovering the Satellites” and Nirvana’s “From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah.”

But none has sustained any momentum or seems likely to crack the year-end Top 10.

Instead, the real contenders might be revealed during the next few weeks, when new releases are rolled out from Snoop Doggy Dogg, Tupac Shakur, Babyface, Bush and Dr. Dre, along with soundtracks for “The Preacher’s Wife,” featuring Whitney Houston, and “Evita,” featuring Madonna.

“Some of these records are going to be mega-huge, but if you’re talking about this year, they’ve only got a few weeks left,” says Violet Brown, urban music buyer for the 268-store Wherehouse chain. “But these are records that over the course of the next year will be incredibly strong.”