Funkadelic - Maggot Brain [Armageddon Red]

Eddie Hazel's ten minutes at the top of Maggot Brain are the reason most people find this record, and the story behind them has been retold enough times to become myth: George Clinton telling Hazel to play like he had just learned his mother had died, then like he found out she hadn't. Whatever actually happened in that Detroit room in 1971, what came out of it is one of the few guitar solos in recorded music that people describe in terms of grief rather than technique.

The rest of the album is stranger and funnier than its reputation suggests. "Can You Get To That" is a gospel sing-along built on an acoustic loop. "Hit It And Quit It" hands the microphone to Bernie Worrell. "Super Stupid" is a proto-metal sprint. And "Wars Of Armageddon" ends the whole thing in ten minutes of tape collage, sirens and studio chaos that no major label would sign off on today. Funkadelic were a rock band who happened to be the funkiest people alive, and this is the album where both halves stopped arguing.

Initially misunderstood on release, it now sits at number 136 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums list and remains the permanent entry point to the P-Funk catalog.

This 2026 ORG Music reissue was mastered all-analog, cut direct from the original tape to lathe by Dave Gardner at DSG Mastering with restoration by Catherine Vericolli. Pressed at Furnace on Armageddon Red vinyl and housed in a gatefold jacket.