I know what some of you are thinking: Maggot Brain, underrepresented? How so? The music reviewing "elite" loves this album; Pitchfork and Rolling Stone regularly rate this album as one of the top albums of all time. Yet whenever I mention Funkadelic to a friend of my age, it draws blank stares. It seems as if in this day and age, our generation is passing over some of the most influential and interesting albums from that time, in favor of the obvious bands: The Beatles. Led Zeppelin. The Rolling Stones. It's a shame, and I hope to change that in a few of us.
Funkadelic's Maggot Brain is one of the progenitors of the funk genre, but it's much more than just that. Maggot Brain is just as much a psychedelic album as a funk album, taking as much influence from the psychedelic scene of the time as soul and R&B music.
Let's take the eponymous opening track as an example. The song "Maggot Brain" mainly consists of an almost 10-minute guitar solo. Legend has it that George Clinton told Eddie Hazel to play the solo as if he had just found out he was dying. The result is possibly the most beautiful, soulful and heart-melting guitar solo of the 70s. The style of this solo was probably not lost on guitarists like David Gilmour, who at that time was just beginning to replace Syd Barrett as lead guitarist for Pink Floyd.
The rest of the album is just as musically interesting, while also managing to be fun, soulful and danceable. "You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks" is one of my favorites, taking influence from an old black spiritual song and turning it into a funky R&B number. "Super Stupid," on the other hand, sounds like the lovechild of Jimi Hendrix and Aerosmith (of course, long before Aerosmith ever existed), possibly one of the first heavy-riff-driven 70s rock songs. "Back In Our Minds" is laid-back enough to make Jimmy Buffett jealous. And the final track, "Wars of Armageddon," is the summation of the entire album: funky and so psychedelic it hurts.
This musically diverse, influential album doesn't get the credit it should get anymore, and I think anyone would be completely remiss not to hear it. So get on it folks! And enjoy.
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