7. "dinner with delores" (from chaos & disorder lp, 1996)
i remember seeing the video once, but this single disappeared about as quickly as the album it appeared on. not surprising, since it's a fragile thing: falsetto trills and cooing backing vocals, bound together in my mind by one of his most archetypal guitar solos, a solo that demonstrates, like santana, how important tone is to his playing. it's a song that ends with a good bye that sounds more like "good riddance," an apt sentiment considering that this was his last non-archival album for warner brothers. and, yet, as this era proves, there is such a thing as too much freedom (and, unsurprisingly, as with 1999's rave, he now finds himself leaning on a major once again -- each "comeback" is inextricably bound up with one of the big five.)