Maggot Brain is the third studio album by the American funk rock band Funkadelic, released by Westbound Records in July 1971.

[1] 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.

"[9] The subsequent five tracks have been described as "sour harmony-group meditations heavy with bass, keyboard and class consciousness,"[10] with the band exploring a "psychedelic/funk fusion.

"[11] "Can You Get to That" features Isaac Hayes' backing vocal group Hot Buttered Soul,[2] and contains elements of folk blues and gospel music.

[12] Other sources say the title is a reference to band leader George Clinton finding his brother Robert'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.

[3] According to author Rickey Vincent, the organization's alleged association with the Manson Family, along with the album's foreboding themes and striking artwork, lent Funkadelic the image of a "death-worshipping black rock band.

[citation needed] 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."

[18] Village Voice critic Robert Christgau offered qualified praise, calling the title-track "druggy, time-warped super-schlock" and describing "Can You Get to That" as featuring "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] 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.

[32] 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.

drew influence from Maggot Brain, as did D'Angelo's 2014 album Black Messiah, 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.

It made me want to learn to play guitar, and its huge range of styles — funk, bluegrass, country, opera — helped build our sound.