Maggot Brain

Maggot Brain

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Editorial Reviews

A hip pocket release for Funkadelic's legendary album. This reissue includes the original seven track album and is the first of our LP facsimile releases to feature a gatefold sleeve. MAGGOT BRAIN is rated by, amongst others, Mojo Magazine as an all-time classic. Their critics voted it the fourth greatest guitar album ever, only beaten by Jimi Hendrix and the Who. Guitarist Eddie Hazel's playing on the title track is nothing short of stunning!

Funkadelic was George Clinton's chance to get serious. Unlike Parliament, Funkadelic exhibited topical lyrics and an almost heavy-metal edge, one that included screeching, distorted guitar and unsettling musical turns. This 1971 album, Funkadelic's second release, catches the ensemble in its early prime. The Hendrix-inspired dramatics come courtesy of Eddie Hazel, while Bernie Worrell admirably handles the keyboard chores. Clinton's humorous, sober lyrics address poverty, race relations, and drug use. Musically, the band covers lots of ground: Everything from smooth soul and heavy rock to abstract psychedelia and straight-on funky grooves has a place, and these jarring shifts are what make the album a revolutionary work. --Marc Greilsamer

Customer Reviews

it's great funk and rock

Reviewed by B. E Jackson, 2010-03-12

Tonight is the very first time I'm getting to check out Funkadelic to *finally* see what all the fuss is about, so I decided to make my first experience the Maggot Brain album thanks to several recommendations (I AM a huge classic rock fan after all).

I know this much- without even hesitating, I KNOW I will dig this band.

I like funky rhythms, extended, soulful guitar solos, and muddy production. That's why I like the early 70's so much. I already love Funkadelic!

One thing that kind of bugs me though is the title song. Please don't criticize me for stating this, but the majority of the guitar playing taking place during this 10-minute jam seriously reminds me of several moments from an album called UFO: Flying.

Now the reason I bring this up is because a google search reveals that the UFO album came out in February of 1971, and Maggot Brain came out in July of '71.

I'm not going to sit here and say the guitarist from Funkadelic ripped off his jams from the UFO album (because whether that's true or not, I honestly don't know).

I just know there's a startling resemblance between the title song and the extended jams featured on the UFO album. Whether there's a connection between the two bands or not, or whether the band members actually crossed paths at some point (like during a tour) and were inspired by each other, I haven't a clue. I just know I hear guitar playing that sounds nearly identical on both albums.

Despite that, I LOVE the title song on Maggot Brain. Some of the most beautiful, soulful, and delightful guitar jamming I've ever heard. It probably surpasses the majority of the previously mentioned UFO album, in fact.

I *would* like to know which album came out first. I hope people aren't citing this album as something original though, because a little bit of funk thrown in between some guitar jamming has been done before (even on UFO: Flying- I'm SORRY for bringing it up again, haha, please forgive me!)

The other jam, called "Wars of Armageddon" is much funkier and almost straight forward in the guitar jamming, but that's actually a compliment to the song because it seems the band members wanted to make it all about the funkiness, and they certainly succeeded with that. I could do without the nonsense talking bit in the middle though.

Sometimes this album reminds me of Grand Funk Railroad as well. Check out that band if you like what you're hearing on Maggot Brain. This is definitely a very good 5-star album.

I can't quite give in to popular opinion and state this is one of the best albums of the early 70's, but for a little bit of funk and rock combined, these guys are definitely quite talented and deliver with an album that's mostly memorable.

Product Review

Reviewed by Renzo Nery, 2009-07-18

Maggot Brain is a 1971 album by the American funk band Funkadelic. It was released on Westbound Records. The music swings through psychedelia, hard rock, gospel and soul music, with tremendous variation between each track.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 486 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Pitchfork Media ranked it #17 in their Top 100 Albums of the 70s list.

"Maggot Brain" - The song's story

According to legend, George Clinton, under the influence of LSD, told Eddie Hazel to play the first half of the song like his mother had just died and to play the second half as if he had found out she was alive (other variants of the story suggest that he was simply told to play as if he had found his mother dead.) The result was the 10-minute guitar solo for which Hazel is most fondly remembered by many music critics and fans. Though several other musicians began the track playing, Clinton soon realized the power of Hazel's solo and faded them out so that the focus would be on Hazel's guitar (the band can only truly be heard during the end of the song, and even then, it is barely audible.) The entire track was recorded in one take.[1] The solo is played in a pentatonic minor scale in the key of E over another guitar track of a simple arpeggio. Hazel's solo was played through a fuzzbox and a wah pedal; some sections of the song utilize a delay effect. This style would be revisited later in Standing on the Verge of Getting It On on the track "Good Thoughts, Bad Thoughts". The original version with full band accompaniment was released in 1997 on the album "Funkadelic Finest".



An Ambitious, Classic Release

Reviewed by Mr. Richard D. Coreno, 2007-03-18

There are few bands who would take the creative chances like Funkadelic did on its 1971 album. The band's second release highlights guitarist Eddie Hazel in songs that are more avant-garde and heavy-metal in nature, with doses of psychedelia and funky grooves.

Hazel's searing work on Maggot Brain is brilliant and arguably the finest solo put down in the studio during that guitar-laden decade in rock, with Back in Our Minds & Super Stupid equally outstanding.

Wars of Armageddon is one fine politically-charged song, while You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks, takes aim at racism in that George Clinton kind of way. The themes in both songs unfortunately resonate as strongly in news stories today as they did in the 1970s.

Can You Get to That is the gateway to the R&B and gospel influences that will mostly dominate future releases, while Bernie Worrell's keyboards drive Hit It and Quit It.

What was setting the stage for the P Funk mythology - through the freedom of funk and Mother Earth - became one of the more influential releases for metal, punk and the rock/avant-garde movement led by Brian Eno & Robert Fripp (Frippertronics).

It may not be Funkadelic at its funkiest, but it is the band stretching the boundaries of sound in one amazing album.

"I have tasted the maggots of the human mind/I was not offended/for I knew that I must rise up/or else drown in my own sh*t".

Reviewed by finulanu, 2007-01-13

Okay, WTF? Seriously though, that has got to be the coolest opening line in history. And it opens arguably the coolest guitar solo in history. For ten minutes, Eddie Hazel blows Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, Santana, Jimmy Page, and every other guitar hero you've had off the map. He also puts stooges like Joe Walsh and Ritchie Blackmore in their places. He gets rage, joy, tenderness, sadness, and much more outta that thing... damn...
1. Maggot Brain: 1000000/10. Have I mentined it's the best guitar solo EVER?
2. Can You Get to That: 10/10. Always liked this number, a catchy little soulful thing with great harmonies.
3. Hit It and Quit It: 10/10. Eddie Hazel strikes back, adding in ashort-but-sweet guitar solo. Good song otherwise.
4. You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks: 10/10. George Clinton's Everyday People, a statement on racism made in the way only he could make.
5. Super Stupid: 8/10. The lyrics need a bit of work, but Hazel rocks out.
6. Back in Our Minds: 6.5/10. Good message, but only an average song.
7. Wars of Armageddon: ...okay then/10. A ten minute freakout a la Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow. It's weird, all right, but a good type of weird.

They Set The Tone!

Reviewed by BKenny, 2006-09-07

Parliament/Funkadelic set the tone with this album. I did not hear it until my adult years and This by far is a great CD.

If you have an ear to ear, you know that "Mother Earth" has been used and humanity is the one that "stuck it to her" and then left her. Parliament/Funkadelic was and still is very deep! The music alone sets you in a groove that you have to experience for yourself! They let you know in "Can You Get To That" what is what in that day and time and in some respects, still applies.Enough of the psyco mumbo jumbo, this album is hot!! This set the tone for what was to come next. Eddie Hazel is magnificent on Maggot Brain and as far as I am concerned Jimi could have learned a thing or two from Eddie! These two styles are not such a comparison as many people write---Eddie, Tawl, Billy and Tiki were in a class all by themselves not to mention Bernie "Da Vincci" Worrell--The Woo-Man himself took music to another level. "So sit back and dig while they do it to your earhole"......