Maggot Brain is the third studio album by the American funk rock band Funkadelic, released by Westbound Records in July 1971. It was produced by bandleader George Clinton and recorded at United Sound Systems in Detroit during late 1970 and early 1971. The album was the final LP recorded by the original Funkadelic lineup; after its release, founding members Tawl Ross (guitar), Billy Nelson (bass), and Tiki Fulwood (drums) left the band for various reasons.

The album charted on the Billboard R&B Top 20. In 2020, Rolling Stone ranked Maggot Brain the 136th greatest album of all time in its updated list.

Music and lyrics

The album opens with a spoken word monologue by Funkadelic bandleader George Clinton, which refers to "the maggots in the mind of the universe". Though several other musicians performed on the track, Clinton de-emphasized them in the final mix so that the focus would be on Hazel.

The subsequent five tracks have been described as "sour harmony-group meditations heavy with bass, keyboard and class consciousness," "Can You Get to That" features Isaac Hayes' backing vocal group Hot Buttered Soul,

Release

Title and packaging

Reportedly, "Maggot Brain" was the nickname of Hazel. Other sources say the title is a reference to band leader George Clinton finding his brother Robert's "decomposed dead body, skull cracked, in an apartment in Newark, New Jersey." it was photographed by Joel Brodsky and features model Barbara Cheeseborough. The album's liner notes are a polemic on fear provided by the Process Church of the Final Judgement.

Commercial performance and aftermath

Westbound Records released Maggot Brain in July 1971. It peaked at number 108 on the Billboard 200 and reached the top 20 of the Billboard R&B album charts, but did not reach the UK Albums Chart.

After the album was released, Funkadelic effectively disbanded. Village Voice critic Robert Christgau offered qualified praise, calling the title-track "druggy, time-warped super-schlock" and describing "Can You Get to That" as featuring "a rhythm so pronounced and eccentric it could make Berry Gordy twitch to death"; he added that "the funk pervades the rest of the album, but not to the detriment of other peculiarities."

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Writing years later for PopMatters, Yuval Taylor called the album "one of the loudest, darkest, most intense records ever made", and stated that the group "captured the odor of the age, the stench of death and corruption, the weary exhalation of America at its lowest." Music historian Bob Gulla hailed it as an "iconoclastic funk-rock" record, featuring the best guitar playing of Hazel's career. Author Matthew Grant describes the album as marking where "the band really hit their stride. John Bush of AllMusic stated that the group "hit its stride with [the] acid-rock extravaganza." Happy Mag named the album among the five best P-Funk releases, describing it as "an absolute freakout of psychedelic funk sounds", but also "perhaps Clinton’s most lyrically sparse album". Fender called the album "an eruption of psychedelic agit-funk that blended the increasingly bleak American story—urban decay, prime time body counts from an ongoing slog through Vietnam, and front page assassinations—with the sounds of Hendrix, Motown, James Brown, Cream, Sly Stone, Blue Cheer and Vanilla Fudge." The Washington Post critic Geoffrey Himes names it an exemplary release of progressive soul.

In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked Maggot Brain #486 on its list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, with the magazine raising its rank in 2012 to #479, calling it "the heaviest rock album the P-Funk ever created". In the 2020 reboot of the list, the album's rank increased again to #136. It was also listed in the 2005 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Vernon Reid of the band Living Colour called the album "a magnum opus of rock 'n' roll."

Track listing

  • Sides one and two were combined as tracks 1–7 on CD reissues.

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.

Funkadelic

  • Bernie Worrell – keyboards, vocals (lead vocals on track 3)
  • Eddie Hazel – lead guitar, vocals (lead vocals on track 5)
  • Tawl Ross – guitar, vocals (co-lead vocals on tracks 6 and 7)
  • Billy Nelson – bass guitar, vocals (lead vocals on track 4)
  • Tiki Fulwood – drums
  • George Clinton – vocals (spoken word on track 1, lead vocals on tracks 6 and 7)
  • Raymond Davis – vocals (lead vocals on track 2)
  • Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, Grady Thomas, Garry Shider – backing vocals
  • Hot Buttered Soul (Pat Lewis, Diane Lewis, Rose Williams) – backing vocals (track 2)

Production

  • Produced by George Clinton
  • Executive producer – Armen Boladian
  • Bernie Mendelson in charge of The Eegangas
  • Mastering - Howard Craft - Mastercraft of Memphis
  • Cover photography by Joel Brodsky
  • Inside cover photography by Ron Scribner
  • Artwork design – The Graffiteria/Paula Bisacca
  • Art direction – David Krieger
  • Album supervision – Bob Scerbo
  • Album co-ordination – Dorothy Schwartz
  • Model on album cover – Barbara Cheeseborough

References

  • the Motherpage