Maggot Brain

Reportedly, "Maggot Brain" was the nickname of Hazel.[12] Other sources say the title is a reference to band leader George Clinton finding his brother's "decomposed dead body, skull cracked, in an apartment in Newark, New Jersey."[13][3]

The cover artwork depicts a screaming black woman's head coming out of the earth;[14] it was photographed by Joel Brodsky and features model Barbara Cheeseborough.[15] The album's liner notes are a polemic on fear provided by the Process Church of the Final Judgement, an obscure Satanist religious cult.[3] According to author Rickey Vincent, the organization's presumed association with mass-murderer Charles Manson, along with the album's foreboding themes and striking artwork, lent Funkadelic the image of a "death-worshipping black rock band."[16]

Westbound Records released Maggot Brain in July 1971. It peaked at number 108 on the US pop chart while missing the UK chart,[17] and also reached the top 20 of the R&B charts.[3]

After the album was released, the band effectively disbanded:[3] drummer Tiki Fulwood was fired due to drug use; guitarist Tawl Ross reportedly got into an "acid eating contest, then snorting some raw speed, before completely flipping out" and has not performed since; bassist Billy Nelson quit over a money dispute with Clinton.[2] Subsequently, only Clinton, Hazel, and keyboardist Bernie Worrell remained from the original Funkadelic lineup.[2]

A 2005 reissue included three bonus tracks, among them an alternate mix of "Maggot Brain" featuring the full-band performance.

Reviewing for Rolling Stone in September 1971, Vince Aletti negatively described Maggot Brain as "a shattered, desolate landscape with few pleasures," competently performed but "limited." He was particularly critical of the record's second side, panning it as "dead-end stuff," and asked "who needs this shit?"[18] Village Voice critic Robert Christgau was more enthusiastic, praising the title-track as "druggy, time-warped super-schlock" and claiming that the second track features "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."[19]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[4]
Blender	[10]
Christgau's Record Guide	B+[19]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[20]
MusicHound Rock	4.5/5[21]
Pitchfork	10/10[22]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[23]
Spin Alternative Record Guide	10/10[24]
Tiny Mix Tapes	[25]
Uncut	[26]

Writing years later for PopMatters, 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."[3] Dominque Leone of Pitchfork called the album "an explosive record, bursting at the seams with exactly the kind of larger than life sound a band called Funkadelic should have made."[2] Dave Segal, from the same publication, revered it as "a monument of psychedelic funk" and "a defining document of Black rock music in the early '70s". Additionally, he called its two bookending tracks "the most evocative expressions of birth and annihilation ever put on record" and suggested that the "soulful funk-rock" tracks in between represent the "hott[est] five-song streak in the Clinton canon".[22] The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Rock History (2006) claimed that Maggot Brain and Funkadelic's previous two albums "created a whole new kind of psychedelic rock with a dance groove".[27] Music historian Bob Gulla hailed it as an "iconoclastic funk-rock" record, featuring the best guitar playing of Hazel's career.[28] Author Matthew Grant describes the album as marking where "the band really hit their stride.[11]

In a subsequent review for Blender, Christgau described the 10-minute title track as "indelible" and said the album culminated in "Funkadelic's most incendiary freak-out ever" on the last track, while also applauding the 2005 CD reissue's bonus tracks.[10] Stereogum named it the second best album by the Parliament-Funkadelic collective, and called it "one of the most cathartic R&B albums ever made."[29] John Bush of AllMusic stated that the group "hit its stride with [the] acid-rock extravaganza."[30] Happy Mag named the album among the 5 best P-Funk releases, describing it as "an absolute freakout of psychedelic funk sounds", but also "perhaps Clinton’s most lyrically sparse album".[31] 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."[7] The Washington Post critic Geoffrey Himes names it an exemplary release of the progressive soul development from 1968 to 1973.[32]

Maggot Brain was also influential to subsequent artists.[33] Vernon Reid of the band Living Colour said, "'Maggot Brain' is a magnum opus of rock 'n' roll."[33] Michael Melchiondo of the band Ween said, "When I heard 'Maggot Brain,' it was like, [...] there's this whole other thing, and it's even better, and there's more of it. And I can go see it live, and there's nine guitar players that are this good. So that was the hugest, hugest deal." Melchiondo paid tribute to Eddie Hazel on the Ween instrumental "A Tear for Eddie", which appeared on the band's Chocolate and Cheese album.[33] The Mars Volta's Amputechture album featured a "Maggot Brain"-inspired solo on the song "Vicarious Atonement".[33] Jazz musician Angel Bat Dawid also drew influence from Funkadelic and "Maggot Brain".[33] The alternative rock band Sleigh Bells sampled "Can You Get To That?" in their hit song "Rill Rill".[33] Rapper Esham, a pioneer of horrorcore, sampled "You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks" and "Super Stupid" on his 1990 song "Red Rum".[33] Rapper Redman pays tribute to the Maggot Brain cover art in the art for his album Dare Iz a Darkside, which contains a song called "Cosmic Slop", which takes its name from the Funkadelic album of the same name.[33] Childish Gambino's album Awaken, My Love! drew influence from the Maggot Brain album, as did D'Angelo on his Black Messiah album, which The New York Times said "captured American unrest through the studio murk of Sly Stone, the fervor of Funkadelic and the off-kilter grooves somewhere between J Dilla and Captain Beefheart."[33] "Super Stupid" was the only cover song recorded by the alternative metal band Audioslave, who were influenced by Funkadelic.[33] André 3000 of the hip hop group Outkast said of Maggot Brain, "That album blew my mind. It made me want to learn to play guitar, and its huge range of styles — funk, bluegrass, country, opera — helped build our sound."[33] The singer Bilal names it among his 25 favorite albums, citing its "loose" creative direction as an influence on his own music.[34]

In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked Maggot Brain #486 on the magazine's 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".[35][36] In the 2020 reboot of the list, the album's rank shot up to #136.[37] The record was also listed in the music reference book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[1]

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

• Produced by George Clinton
• Executive producer – Armen Boladian
• Bernie Mendelson in charge of The Eegangas
• 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