It starts with a crackle of feedback shooting from speaker to speaker and a voice intoning, "Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time, for y'all have knocked her up. I have tasted the maggots of the mind of the universe. I was not offended. For I knew I had to rise above it all or drown in my own shit " This could only have been utterly bizarre back in 1971 and it's no less so decades later; though the Mothership was well on its way already, Maggot Brain really helped it take off. The instrumental title track is Read more on Last.fm.
Should I have a son, God willing, and he tells me he wants to play guitar, this will be the record we sit down and listen to together. To keep in perspective why we consume, produce, or enjoy music, it’s our humble duty to bear in mind the things of which it’s capable. Eddie Hazel commanded those limits, and it’s never been more evident than it was here. Hazel had this uncanny ability to speak a thousand words with a single bent note, and in the title track, he says a lifetime’s worth. “Maggot Brain” is arguably one of the most emotive rock ‘n roll instrumentals mine ears hath ever heard, and what follows that sort of catharsis is the only thing that possibly good: half a dozen slabs of big, beautiful, blown out groovin’. Music lovers, this one’s got it all. Hit this record; hit it again and again and again … but please, don’t ever quit it.