Review Summary: Maggot Brain’s eclectic sound and undeniable grooves never get old, and it is truly a masterpiece from a classic era of music.
Funkadelic’s ground-breaking 1971 album Maggot Brain is a masterpiece of music hard to describe with a single genre. To call it simply funk or rock n’ roll seems too straightforward, too one-dimensional for an album that is a melting pot of many different musical styles. The lyrics are thought-provoking, George Clinton’s production is top notch, and Eddie Hazel’s guitar playing reaches legendary levels on the last Funkadelic album before he left the band.
The album’s opener and title track “Maggot Brain” is of course the absolute highlight of the record. On this track, guitarist Eddie Hazel unleashes perhaps the single finest guitar performance ever recorded, mixing excellent effects usage with shredding yet melodic technique and raw emotion. As the story goes, while in the studio and under the effect of the psychedelic LSD, Funkadelic leader/producer/singer George Clinton told Hazel to play as though he had just found out his mother was dead, but halfway through the song learned she was still alive. The result is an emotional, expressive, emphatic performance the likes of which have never quite been replicated in any recording since. Hazel’s guitar solo starts with a slow, contemplative realization that builds until the guitar screams through the soft backing track with such ferocity and tangible anguish that the listener can truly feel the pain that Hazel is trying to convey through his instrument. At about the halfway mark of the ten-plus minute song, Hazel is at the point in the trip where he is finding out his mother is alive and his playing changes dramatically. The screeching overdriven guitar gives way to a melodic and soft tone as the clouds part from the emotional thunderstorm, and Hazel’s playing speeds up as he rains down a flurry of staccatoed notes. It is jubilant, elated, rejuvenating. The emotional feeling does a complete 180 as the listener can’t help but smile from the pure joy emanating from Hazel’s guitar in the second half of this song. “Maggot Brain” is truly a classic guitar concerto, one of the high water marks of rock music that achieved an historic status the moment it was conceived.
Once the title track of Maggot Brain fades out, the listener is jolted back to reality and realizes there are six more songs on the album. While the opener is truly the focus of the album, the rest of the songs are no filler. “Can You Get To That” is a toe-tapping, groovy acoustic track that lays down the band’s philosophy in the first verse with the lyrics: “I once had a life, or rather, life had me/I was one among many or at least I seemed to be/Well, I read an old quotation in a book just yesterday/Said ‘Gonna reap just what you sow/The debts you make you have to pay.’” This catchy tune is followed by “Hit It and Quit It” where once again Eddie Hazel’s guitar is on display, but with a much funkier style than in “Maggot Brain.” The riff in “Hit It and Quit It” is classic air guitar fodder and will end up stuck in the listener’s head for days afterwards.
“You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks” brings the tempo down with a great protest song emulating the style of Sly & The Family Stone. The lyrics urge poor people to band together to achieve equality among all people. With a righteous message and a heady beat this song adds to the Funkadelic message of peace.
“Super Stupid” is a pure rock n’ roll headbanger, with Eddie Hazel singing lead vocals while his guitar shines again as it does on the entire album. Hazel was a big fan of the recently deceased Jimi Hendrix and this song is almost like an homage to Hendrix as is obvious from Hazel’s singing and overdriven guitar style. The guitar solo is pure shredding that makes any listener have to consider Eddie Hazel as one of the greatest ever.
Maggot Brain finishes off with another near ten minute song in “Wars of Armageddon.” This track is much goofier and less controlled than the opener, appearing as more of a sound collage than a cohesive song. There are moments of brilliance with guitar and keyboard solos over a driving drum ensemble, interspersed with many audio recordings that require careful listening. Sirens, cuckoo clocks, airplanes, cows, and even farts find their way into the track as it seems like George Clinton was having a field day sampling every possible sound he could think of for this closing track. “Wars of Armageddon” is a difficult song to listen to and perhaps it lies beyond comprehension, but it is still an interesting escapade into digital sampling akin to the Beatles’ “Revolution 9.”
Maggot Brain is the crowning achievement of Funkadelic’s discography and its influence and fame has become widespread over the decades. The title track alone catapulted Eddie Hazel from a near unknown entity to one of the greatest guitar players alive, and he took this fame into a solo career after the release of the album. This is a classic funk and rock record that nothing in either genre has come close to replicating. Maggot Brain’s eclectic sound and undeniable grooves never get old, and it is truly a masterpiece from a classic era of music.
