Replay: Funkadelic, Maggot Brain, 1971

Here's an embarrassing admission that falls somewhere between "I can't read" and "I once exchanged drugs for sex": I learned about George Clinton from Dr. Dre. Chalk it up to a regrettable penchant for white-kid hardcore, but until the release of The Chronic, I was clueless as to the freaky-deaky funkifying power of Uncle Jam. In fact, if you had asked me in 1992 who was responsible for "Let Me Ride," I would have sworn it was Death Row Records and not the Mothership Connection.

It was maybe a year later that I learned Dre was not, in fact, the architect of the funk. The source of enlightenment was Maggot Brain--a bitter pill that bookends a handful of punchy soul jams with a pair of 10-minute funk freakouts. Arguably Clinton's most ambitious recording, Maggot Brain blends funk, soul, psychedelic rock, country gospel and blues boogie into an otherworldly burgoo--in the process, answering his famous query: "Who says a funk band can't rock?" More than any of his contemporaries--Sly Stone and Isaac Hayes, in particular--Clinton straddled funk and rock like a dreadlocked colossus.

And brother got his freak on when he did it, too. No matter that he would later hawk Apple Computers and star in that shameful Animal House reprise PCU, Clinton had a dark side that made Ozzy Osbourne look like a well-adjusted young lad. Just look at the shrieking soul sister buried up to her neck in dirt on the cover of Maggot Brain. She doesn't look like she's fixin' to get up for the down stroke; she looks like she's letting out one last, desperate cry before the vultures pick out her eyeballs.

There's a similar desperation in guitarist Eddie Hazel's 10-minute solo on the album's title track--a fact that has long been attributed to the fact that Clinton told Hazel to "play like your momma just died" before recording the jam. It's the perfect complement to another, more dubious rumor that accompanies Maggot Brain. Although Clinton denies the connection, some rock historians have suggested that the album's title was inspired by his dead brother, who Clinton allegedly discovered with his head cracked open in a Chicago apartment. If it's true, then Maggot Brain is a reckoning--a fact which at least partially accounts for Clinton's bizarre pronouncement at the beginning of the record: "I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe/ And I was not offended/ For I knew I had to rise above it all/ Or drown in my own shit."--Newt Briggs