#136 Funkadelic, 'Maggot Brain' (1971)

Previously #479

This is another album that was a major standout for me last time. An album that completely knocked me off my feet, an album that was so good that I was surprised I’d never listened to it. I’m glad to see its rise. ‘Maggot Brain’ is the third and final album to be released by the original lineup of Funkadelic. The album opens with a 10-minute trip recorded in one take. Band leader, George Clinton, under the influence of LSD, recorded a monologue over the guitar of Eddie Hazel, who had been told by Clinton to play as if he had been told his mother is dead. In that one song, Hazel gives the performance of a lifetime and it sets the tone for the record. The subsequent tracks are completely different to any of the previous Funkadelic albums we’re heard, or even Parliament, for that matter. ‘Can You Get To That’ features the vocals of Isaac Hayes’s backing band, Hot Buttered Soul of repetitive guitar (which was later sampled on Sleigh Bells’ ‘Rill Rill’). The music is dark Soul, ‘Hit It and Quit It’ bears more elements of Psychedelic Rock than Soul, even.

Over the 7 tracks, you manage to get lost in this album. The music is so interest and so beguiling. It really takes you on a journey from that initial 10 minute trip all the way through to ‘Wars Of Armageddon,’ an almost 10-minute track of chanting over a tapestry of sounds; production befitting the mind of Brian Wilson. Artists have been trying to emulate its sounds for the past 50 years and one album in recent years that stands out for me as being directly influenced by this album is Childish Gambino’s ‘”Awaken, My Love!”’ ‘Maggot Brain’ is arguably the best thing George Clinton ever did, which is quite an achievement amongst an incredible body of work.

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