Maggot Brain
Third studio album by the American funk band Funkadelic released in July 1971 by Westbound Records
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. It is perhaps best known for its ten-minute title track, largely consisting of an improvised solo by guitarist Eddie Hazel. In 2009, Pitchfork named it the 17th best album of the 1970s. 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". According to legend, the opening title track was recorded in one take when Clinton, under the influence of LSD, told lead guitarist Eddie Hazel to play as if he had just learned his mother was dead; Clinton instructed him "to picture that day, what he would feel, how he would make sense of his life, how he would take a measure of everything that was inside him and let it out through his guitar". 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 public source identifies “Maggot Brain” as third studio album by the American funk band Funkadelic released in July 1971 by Westbound Records. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Maggot, Brain and Third.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q937641. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1971, 1970, 2009 and 2020.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maggot Brain” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.