https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/07/11/arts/music/funkadelic-maggot-brain.html Sections SEARCH Skip to contentSkip to site index Log in Before & After Funkadelic's 'Maggot Brain' By Christopher R. Weingarten and Aliza AufrichtigJuly 11, 2021 * * * * * Before & After 'Maggot Brain' Funkadelic's third album was a psychedelic blast of freewheeling protest music. As the LP turns 50, we look back at the music that fueled it -- and that was inspired by it. By Christopher R. Weingarten Produced by Aliza Aufrichtig July 11, 2021 HIT IT On more than three dozen virtuosic, genre-blurring studio albums released from 1970 to 1982, George Clinton and the members of his rollicking Parliament-Funkadelic collective shaped the backbone and shook loose the booty of modern groove. Formed by singers in the orbit of a New Jersey barbershop in 1955, the group started as a Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers-style doo-wop act before leaning into Detroit soul. Ultimately they absorbed the culture of the late '60s like sponges. The Parliaments transformed from a Motown-aspiring, matching-tie-and-handkerchief vocal group into tripped-out hippies in bell bottoms, headdresses and the occasional American flag diaper. They were turned on by psychedelic rockers like Jimi Hendrix and Cream; they hung out with punks like the MC5 and the Stooges; they enjoyed Black Power, free love and underground comics. "Free your mind and your ass will follow," they famously sang. "The kingdom of heaven is within." However, Funkadelic's third album, "Maggot Brain," wasn't a Technicolor romp. It was the sound of the Woodstock dream deferred. The band emerged screaming from the shadows cast by Vietnam, the racial uprisings in their old home of New Jersey and their new home in Detroit, a heroin epidemic, poverty, Kent State and the death of Hendrix himself, whose passing was rife with symbolism. The album arrived 50 years ago, in July 1971, during a summer bookended by the release of two other ambitious masterworks of protest-soul: the introspective reportage of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" and the brooding disillusionment of Sly and the Family Stone's "There's a Riot Goin' On." But "Maggot Brain" exists in a different astral plane. It is unleashed id refracted through the lens of LSD: 36 minutes of swirling jams, apocalyptic sound effects, heavy metal riffs, hard funk and lyrical mash-ups of the Beatles and Martin Luther King Jr. The album art is provocative -- a screaming Black woman outside the gatefold, and inside, text from the Process Church of the Final Judgment, the religious group rumored to have ties to Charles Manson. The work that Clinton and his band released in the next decade would transform the base of modern hip-hop: You couldn't turn on a radio in the '90s without hearing a slow-rolling rap song built on a P-Funk sample. But "Maggot Brain" holds a unique place of influence among rock bands, R&B songwriters and jazz artists thanks to its Blacker-than-Sabbath atmospheres and transcendent soloing. In 2021, its legacy is felt even stronger, in the ever-evolving protest music of artists like Kendrick Lamar, D'Angelo, Solange and Brittany Howard . Here's an audio guide to the album's seven songs, plus what came before, and what came after. All music previews and full tracks provided by spotify Spotify. 1. Maggot Brain toggle menu Turn autoplay on Maggot Brain Track 1 Sex Machine cover artDark Star (Live) cover artMachine Gun (Live) cover artMaggot Brain cover artOpen Letter (to a Landlord) cover artA Tear for Eddie cover artVicarious Atonement cover artLondon (Live) cover art Before 'Maggot Brain' (1969) play Sex Machine Sly and the Family Stone Clinton had loved the utopian, genre-blurring pop of Sly and the Family Stone since hearing the group's 1967 debut. "He was the only other act who could do what the Beatles were doing. But there were four of them -- there was only one of him," Clinton wrote in his 2014 autobiography, "Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain't That Funkin' Kinda Hard On You?" Sly and the Family Stone's fourth album, "Stand!" features many of the group's most iconic singles -- "Everyday People," "Stand!" "Sing a Simple Song," "I Want to Take You Higher" -- but also has "Sex Machine," a 13-minute funk-rock jam with wild studio effects. In Clinton's lifetime, Stone would move from a formative influence to a friend to a competitor to, ultimately, a collaborator. listen to full track FULL TRACK Before 'Maggot Brain' (1969) play Dark Star (Live) Grateful Dead In the late '60s, the inveterate record obsessive Clinton started taking notice of bands like Iron Butterfly and the Grateful Dead that were pushing songs past the 15-minute mark, occasionally taking up an entire side of vinyl. The 23-minute version of "Dark Star" on the Dead's first live album, "Live/Dead," is a storied piece of patient improvisation, an always-evolving track that provided inspiration for innumerable jam bands. The more than 200 Dead concert performances of "Dark Star" would move from plaintive to noisy, a few minutes to nearly an hour, occasionally featuring guests like Ken Kesey, David Crosby or Branford Marsalis. The "Live/Dead" version, with its epic Jerry Garcia guitar solo, would prove the most famous. listen to full track FULL TRACK Before 'Maggot Brain' (1970) play Machine Gun (Live) Jimi Hendrix Like no small number of musicians of the '60s, Clinton was transformed by the acid-blues of "Are You Experienced?," the Jimi Hendrix Experience's 1967 debut. "He was it. He took noise to church," Clinton told Rolling Stone in 1990. "With that feedback, you could almost write the notes of that feeling down." In the months before his death in 1970, Hendrix formed Band of Gypsys, a funkier, more implosive, jam-centric trio that spiraled its grooves into the stratosphere. "Machine Gun," an expressive, feedback-drenched, 12-minute threnody for soldiers -- fighting both overseas and in the race riots at home -- presaged "Maggot Brain." listen to full track FULL TRACK play Maggot Brain Funkadelic The conversation that led the shy, sensitive guitarist Eddie Hazel to play the epic 10-minute soul cry of a solo on "Maggot Brain" is one of the most repeated stories in Funkadelic lore. "Yeah, I knew we needed one of those serious sad songs, so I told Eddie, 'Imagine your mother died' -- and me and his mother, Grace, are real close -- 'and then you find out she ain't really dead,'" Clinton recounted to Spin in 1985. Hazel recorded the solo in one take. Clinton removed most of the instruments from the mix and saturated it with echo, leaving a desolate, ethereal landscape. Clinton claims the professional engineers in the studio didn't want their names on the record because of his wild mixing. "What you hear on the record is basically the second echo. The source is very rarely used on the record," Clinton said. The result is one of the most powerful and influential guitar solos ever etched into wax. Hazel died in 1992 at 42, but the "Maggot Brain" legacy has survived. Most likely finding kinship with its mix of underground weirdness, naked emotion and timeless rock bravado, many guitarists of the alternative rock boom have tried it live, including Pearl Jam's Mike McCready, Dinosaur Jr.'s J Mascis, Wilco's Nels Cline and the masked wheedler Buckethead. listen to full track FULL TRACK After 'Maggot Brain' (1988) play Open Letter (to a Landlord) Living Colour "'Maggot Brain' is a magnum opus of rock 'n' roll. So who gets to define the genre parameters? Who decides what is rock and what isn't? " said the Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid, discussing a formative influence on his playing. To help combat discrimination in rock music -- a genre invented by Black people but dominated by white people -- he became a co-founder in 1985 of the influential Black Rock Coalition. Based in New York, it united eclectic, disparate, Black-led bands. By the alternative explosion of 1991, there was no shortage of amazing post-Funkadelic hard rock bands making a splash, among them Fishbone, Urban Dance Squad, Follow for Now, the Family Stand and 24-7 Spyz. For his part, Reid laid down what might be the most out-there guitar solo to get regular airplay on MTV with the smash "Cult of Personality." listen to full track FULL TRACK After 'Maggot Brain' (1994) play A Tear for Eddie Ween "When I heard 'Maggot Brain,' it was like, Holy [expletive], there's this whole other thing, and it's even better, and there's more of it. And I can go see it live, and there's nine guitar players that are this good. So that was the hugest, hugest deal," Michael Melchiondo, known as Dean Ween, has said of his favorite band. Melchiondo paid tribute to Hazel on "A Tear for Eddie," an instrumental on Ween's breakthrough "Chocolate and Cheese." An unlikely guitar hero in an unlikely major label band, Melchiondo spins the inspiration he takes from Hazel and Prince through effects pedals and an extremely warped perspective. listen to full track FULL TRACK After 'Maggot Brain' (2006) play Vicarious Atonement The Mars Volta The Austin live wires the Mars Volta expressed their love of progressive rock, Miles Davis and P-Funk with punk rock energy. Their third album, "Amputechture," opens with a "Maggot Brain"-style solo. listen to full track FULL TRACK After 'Maggot Brain' (2019) play London (Live) Angel Bat Dawid "First of all, I come from a Funkadelic, Parliament household," the spiritual jazz vanguard Angel Bat Dawid told NPR in April. "Every day, probably, of my life, my father played anything from Funkadelic and Parliament." Dawid, a clarinetist, pianist and bandleader from Chicago, makes music that vacillates between frenetic free improv and sparser pieces like "London," often directly confronting racism and trauma. listen to full track FULL TRACK Can You Get to That Track 2 I'll Be in Trouble cover artThe Tracks of My Tears cover artCan You Get to That cover artRill Rill cover artHave Some Love cover art Before 'Can You Get to That' (1964) play I'll Be in Trouble The Temptations The Temptations were the blueprint for the Parliaments in the pre-Funkadelic '60s. Clinton ultimately scored a writing gig at their label, Motown, which gave him some schooling to fuel the Mothership. "I learned how to write with cliches, puns and hooks," he told Rolling Stone. "So when I got Parliament-Funkadelic, I just went stupid with it. Instead of one or two hooks, we'd have 10 hooks in the same song. And puns that were so stupid that you could take 'em three or four different ways." listen to full track FULL TRACK Before 'Can You Get to That' (1965) play The Tracks of My Tears Smokey Robinson & the Miracles "I studied him," said Clinton, in his autobiography, of Smokey Robinson, the Miracles leader and songwriter, adding, "He had tons of hooks, puns up the ass, but somehow managed to resolve everything within the song." Beyond Robinson's universally beloved abilities as a songwriter, Clinton admired the way his songs and production could transform artists like the Temptations and Marvin Gaye. Express "everything that's in you, and then find multiple singers and musicians who can help you articulate those emotions in different contexts," Clinton said. listen to full track FULL TRACK play Can You Get to That Funkadelic One of the more accessible moments on "Maggot Brain" is this reboot of "What You Been Growing," a 1968 B-side from the Parliaments' days as a soul group. The years between the songs shed light on the band's evolution. The sunny, psychedelic soul of the original drops more than 20 beats per minute into a dank, slinky groove. The original lyrical riff on the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" -- "I once had a girl, or rather she had me" -- turns into something more existential: "I once had a life, or rather, life had me." listen to full track FULL TRACK After 'Can You Get to That' (2010) play Rill Rill Sleigh Bells The New York duo Sleigh Bells had a brief moment of alternative-rock fame in the early '10s thanks to its addictive bubble gum metal and an M.I.A. cosign. "Rill Rill," a standout track on its 2010 debut, "Treats," rode a sample of "Can You Get to That" all the way into an iPhone commercial and an episode of "Gossip Girl." listen to full track FULL TRACK After 'Can You Get to That' (2016) play Have Some Love Childish Gambino Donald Glover (a.k.a. Childish Gambino) tapped deep into "Maggot Brain" when making the jump from punchline rapper to critically adored R&B hitmaker on his 2016 LP, "Awaken, My Love!" In an interview with Billboard, Glover drew parallels between the unrest of the '70s and the racial and economic uprisings of contemporary times. "It felt like people were trying to get out of their minds, with all the things that were happening -- and that are happening right now." he said, adding, "There's something about that '70s Black music that felt like they were trying to start a revolution." listen to full track FULL TRACK Advertisement Hit It and Quit It Track 3 You Keep Me Hangin' On cover artGet Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine cover artHit It and Quit It cover artMaking Flippy Floppy (Live) cover artPenitentiary Philosophy cover art1000 Deaths cover art Before 'Hit It and Quit It' (1967) play You Keep Me Hangin' On Vanilla Fudge At one Connecticut show, Funkadelic's gear didn't arrive on time, so it borrowed the massive amp and fiberglass-drums setup of the opening act, the heavy metal progenitors Vanilla Fudge. "That's how we found out that we'd been using the wrong equipment all along for the sound and what we were trying to approach," said the bassist Billy Nelson in a 1998 P-Funk oral history. "That's when we really changed from rhythm and blues, Motown wannabes into what we evolved into: the real Funkadelic." listen to full track FULL TRACK Before 'Hit It and Quit It' (1970) play Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine James Brown Beyond his unchallenged role as the Godfather of groove, James Brown gets credit from Clinton for rescuing funk and soul musicians from standing-in-the-shadows-of-Motown-style anonymity, often calling out his bandmates before they took solos. However, Brown's biggest impact on "Maggot Brain" might be popularizing the phrase "hit it and quit," used to end this supremely funky 1970 classic. Shortly after the release of "Maggot Brain," the bassist Bootsy Collins and the guitarist Catfish Collins would depart Brown's band, ultimately joining Clinton's carnival. listen to full track FULL TRACK play Hit It and Quit It Funkadelic The manic bridge of "Hit It and Quit It" featured a wild Hammond organ solo by Bernie Worrell, a classically trained, perfect-pitch prodigy whose parents pushed him to be a classical pianist, though he would sneak off to listen to R&B singles on the radio. Worrell, who had studied at Juilliard, played in giddy bursts of out-there chaos. He told Red Bull Music Academy, "They used to put classical music on a pedestal. And I don't like that. So I took it down. My way. Because nothing is above anything." listen to full track FULL TRACK After 'Hit It and Quit It' (1984) play Making Flippy Floppy (Live) Talking Heads Worrell told Wax Poetics of the new wave icons Talking Heads: "Stiff. No rhythm, man. That's why they hired five Black extras." Talking Heads were expanding their taut art-punk to include rhythms inspired by funk and Afrobeat. Worrell's playing is an integral part of the group's apotheosis, "Stop Making Sense," the 1984 concert film directed by Jonathan Demme. listen to full track FULL TRACK After 'Hit It and Quit It' (2000) play Penitentiary Philosophy Erykah Badu The second album from Erykah Badu, "Mama's Gun," is best known for the simmering, shimmering avant-soul of singles like "Bag Lady," "Didn't Cha Know" and "Cleva," but the landmark album opens with "Penitentiary Philosophy," a decidedly fierce slice of Funkadelia. listen to full track FULL TRACK After 'Hit It and Quit It' (2014) play 1000 Deaths D'Angelo and the Vanguard "I saw a guitar in the studio and I was like, 'What the hell's this? '" Questlove told Rolling Stone about a point in the 14 years between D'Angelo's landmark 2000 album, "Voodoo," and its 2014 follow-up, "Black Messiah." "One night, when he didn't know I was watching, he took a dinner break from recording. Suddenly, I heard 'Maggot Brain' playing. I realized he was in the studio room matching it note-for-note." When the art-soul genius D'Angelo finally returned, it was as a politically charged, guitar-wielding troubadour, whose lush "Black Messiah" promptly became one of the most acclaimed R&B records of the 21st century. Appearing after the uprising in Ferguson , Mo., over the police killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown Jr., "Black Messiah" 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. listen to full track FULL TRACK You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks Track 4 Something cover artYou and Your Folks, Me and My Folks cover artRed Rum cover artCosmic Slop cover art Before 'You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks' (1970) play Something Isaac Hayes At the turn of the '70s, soul had no greater auteur than Isaac Hayes. For his ambitious 1969 album, "Hot Buttered Soul," the veteran hitmaker traded the genre's reliance on hit singles for luxurious, slow-boiling jams that crossed the 10-minute mark more than once. A commercial and critical success, it helped usher in a decade of indelible album-length statements from Marvin Gaye, Sly Stone, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder and, of course, Funkadelic. The singer Pat Lewis arranged the vocals on Hayes's third album, "The Isaac Hayes Movement," and ultimately lent her vocal group -- the Hayes-formed Hot, Buttered & Soul -- to Funkadelic songs like "You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks" listen to full track FULL TRACK play You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks Funkadelic Versions of this hook have been passed down for generations, as evidenced by its appearance in Thomas Talley's 1922 anthology, "Negro Folk Rhymes (Wise and Otherwise)," the pioneering document of African American folk song. In fact, in classic folk tradition, Clinton learned it from his mother. With the bassist Billy "Bass" Nelson on lead vocals, the Funkadelic version tackles economic disparity head on: "The rich got a big piece of this and that/The poor got a big piece of roaches and rats." listen to full track FULL TRACK After 'You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks' (1990) play Red Rum Esham Rubbery Parliament samples powered the sunny West Coast hip-hop of Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Digital Underground, but Detroit's gory "horrorcore" rap demanded something much grimier. "Red Rum," an early track from the genre pioneer Esham, uses bits of both "You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks" and "Super Stupid" (another "Maggot Brain" track) for this bloodthirsty tale of a murderer's mind-set. Calling his sound "acid rap," Esham would serve as an influence to both Eminem and Insane Clown Posse. listen to full track FULL TRACK After 'You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks' (1994) play Cosmic Slop Redman featuring Erick Sermon and Keith Murray The album cover for the rapper Redman's "Dare Iz a Darkside" plays off the screaming head on the cover of "Maggot Brain," and the title "Cosmic Slop" is nabbed from the 1973 Funkadelic album of the same name. Here, one of the most technically gifted rappers of the mid-90s delves into a darkened, spaced-out part of his mind: "Dial 9-0-0 for the hero of the weirdos/I hope my brain don't bust, transform into a 7-11 Slurpie slush." He told Vibe, "I was living in a real dark world at that time. I was doing a lot of acid and I was seeing [expletive]." listen to full track FULL TRACK Advertisement Super Stupid Track 5 Cloud Nine cover artPolitician cover artParchment Farm cover art Heartbreaker cover artSuper Stupid cover artRock and Roll Is Dead cover artSomedays cover art Before 'Super Stupid' (1968) play Cloud Nine The Temptations Clinton claims he's the one who brought the Motown producer Norman Whitfield the Sly Stone records that transformed the Temptations, one of America's most beloved vocal group institutions, into the politically conscious "psychedelic soul" band behind hits like "Cloud Nine." P-Funk's Grady Thomas even jokingly called them the "Imitations" in return. "Cloud Nine" from the newly hippified Temps hit record stores in 1968 -- most likely inspired by Funkadelic, but still beating the group to record stands. listen to full track FULL TRACK Before 'Super Stupid' (1968) play Politician Cream "I felt embarrassed that they knew more about blues than I did. Eric Clapton knew who Robert Johnson was, and I didn't," Clinton told Rolling Stone. Clinton credits the blues-rock power trio -- along with Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, Sly Stone and the Beatles -- with giving him the inspiration to transform his band from the buttoned-up vocal harmonies of the Parliaments to the shaggy psychedelia of Funkadelic. "Rock 'n' roll was getting ready to take over, and that sounded like the music my mother used to listen to, just played loud," he told NPR . listen to full track FULL TRACK Before 'Super Stupid' (1968) play Parchment Farm Blue Cheer The Funkadelic bassist Nelson said that Hendrix and the proto-metal band Blue Cheer "turned me out" in regards to acid rock. "I listened to those albums diligently, every day, until I knew all the songs, note for note," he said in the P-Funk oral history. "After I heard that stuff, I knew that I couldn't just play rhythm and blues constantly. I had to be able to branch out and play it all." listen to full track FULL TRACK Before 'Super Stupid' (1969) play Heartbreaker Led Zeppelin Clinton often points to a show in Boston where he saw Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull -- while on acid, naturally -- as a formative experience. "They were taking Black American music and feeding it through a white heavy-metal filter," he said in his autobiography. "They had great songs and a legitimately dangerous energy." listen to full track FULL TRACK play Super Stupid Funkadelic One of the heaviest tracks in the P-Funk universe, "Super Stupid" is an antidrug horror story about an unlucky soul that goes to procure a bag of cocaine but returns with "skag" -- era-appropriate slang for heroin. In the P-Funk oral history, the drummer Harvey McGee explained that it's a true story, based on something Hazel experienced in Boston. "Soon as he did it, his eyes [bulged] and his nose started running," McGee said. "We called him Maggot Brain 'cause he did stuff like that." listen to full track FULL TRACK After 'Super Stupid' (1995) play Rock and Roll Is Dead Lenny Kravitz Troubled by the whirlwind of fame and the turmoil of his mother battling cancer, the fuzz-pop mastermind and avowed Hazel fan Lenny Kravitz went down a darker, more experimental path for his fourth album, "Circus." Its lead single, "Rock and Roll Is Dead," was pure Funkadelic groove-metal haze. The following year, Prince would release the response "Rock 'N' Roll Is Alive! (And It Lives in Minneapolis)." listen to full track FULL TRACK After 'Super Stupid' (2006) play Somedays Audioslave For its third album, the alt-metal supergroup Audioslave -- 75 percent of Rage Against the Machine with Chris Cornell of Soundgarden -- leaned into the influences that it took from Sly Stone, James Brown and Funkadelic. During its initial seven-year run, the multiplatinum band recorded only one cover song: Funkadelic's "Super Stupid." listen to full track FULL TRACK Back in Our Minds Track 6 Poison Ivy cover artAir cover artThe Acid Queen cover artBack in Our Minds cover artA Movement in the Light cover artHe Loves Me cover art Before 'Back in Our Minds' (1959) play Poison Ivy The Coasters As a doo-wop group, the Parliaments came from the vocal tradition of Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. But Clinton said the "clowning" aspects of groups like the Coasters helped them evolve into freewheeling agents of chaos. "We didn't just get costumes and look like hippies. We really were silly," Clinton told Rolling Stone. "When we got into town for a gig, I'd get to the Holiday Inn, take the Holiday Inn towel, cut four holes in it, and that was my diaper." listen to full track FULL TRACK Before 'Back in Our Minds' (1967) play Air Original Off-Broadway Cast of 'Hair' In his autobiography, Clinton talked about attending a Chambers Brothers show when a seemingly impromptu version of what would become the musical "Hair" broke out. It was one example of how the '60s felt as if they were "epiphanies stacked on top of epiphanies," breaking down boundaries between audience and performer. "We didn't know what the hell they were doing, but the harmonies gave us chills," he said. "Air," part of what would emerge as "The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical," would share the ecological mindfulness of "Maggot Brain" and the shambolic hippie groove of "Back in Our Minds." listen to full track FULL TRACK Before 'Back in Our Minds' (1969) play The Acid Queen The Who Clinton called "Back in Our Minds" "our imitation of the English rock groups of the period." One of those bands, the "maximum R&B" wild men in the Who, would ultimately provide far more than musical inspiration. Their pioneering rock opera "Tommy" would give Clinton the confidence that rock groups could be deeply conceptual. By "Maggot Brain," his group had outrageous outfits and the lyrical beginnings of a sprawling mythology. But by the end of the '70s, P-Funk would have a rotating cast of characters, felt-tip essays splattered across Pedro Bell's baroque cover art and a spaceship that would descend into arenas. listen to full track FULL TRACK play Back in Our Minds Funkadelic Written by one of the original founders of the Parliaments, Fuzzy Haskins, "Back in Our Minds" is a shambolic plea for unity. "We don't fight no more/We done close that door," they sing. "This time for sure/We can't stand no more." listen to full track FULL TRACK After 'Back in Our Minds' (1986) play A Movement in the Light Fishbone Perhaps no post-Funkadelic rock group better captures its combination of kinetic energy, political edge, genre-agnostic expression and lascivious libido than the punk-funk pioneers Fishbone. A more introspective song from the band's 1986 debut LP, "In Your Face," "A Movement in the Light" mirrors the wavelike motion and solidarity-mindedness of "Back in Our Minds": "For you and I should ever come together/Turn away the hatred in your heart/For we should find a peace to last forever/Find the peace no man can tear apart." listen to full track FULL TRACK After 'Back in Our Minds' (2019) play He Loves Me Brittany Howard In 2018, the acclaimed singer and guitarist Brittany Howard put her soaring, rootsy blues-rock band Alabama Shakes on hold to work on her debut solo album: the personal and political "Jaime," a mix of shadowy alternative R&B, chaotic art-funk and psychedelic jazz pileups. The following year, Howard and her live band released a Spotify Singles session during which they covered "You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks." listen to full track FULL TRACK Advertisement Wars of Armageddon Track 7 Etude aux chemins de fer cover artReturn of the Son of Monster Magnet cover artGood Morning Good Morning cover artA Saucerful of Secrets cover artWars of Armageddon cover artBlack Satin cover art Fodderstompf cover artFreaky Styley cover artStankonia (Stanklove) cover art Before 'Wars of Armageddon' (1948) play Etude aux chemins de fer Pierre Schaeffer In the 1940s, the French composer Pierre Schaeffer provided the theoretical and musical frameworks for musique concrete, the act of composing using existing sounds. His earliest works -- manipulating the output of piano, sauce pans, toys and more -- would ultimately yield techniques that continued through 20th-century composition, art rock, dub reggae, turntablism, EDM and more. Like Part One of Schaeffer's first composition, "Cinq etudes de Bruits," the freakiest piece on "Maggot Brain" plays with the sound of trains. listen to full track FULL TRACK Before 'Wars of Armageddon' (1966) play Return of the Son of Monster Magnet The Mothers of Invention An avowed fan of the French electroacoustic composer Edgard Varese, Frank Zappa, the leader of the Mothers of Invention, was one of the first rock artists to dive headlong into the possibilities of electronic music. This 12-minute album closer to the Mothers' debut, "Freak Out!," lays down a groove and then gets the Jackson Pollock treatment with a panoply of cosmic sounds, studio trickery and hallucinogenic noise. listen to full track FULL TRACK Before 'Wars of Armageddon' (1967) play Good Morning Good Morning The Beatles "That record is why I was in the record shop in the first place! I was trying to find out what was happening," Clinton told the Quietus of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." "Psychedelic was just a concept back then -- then they painted the picture of what psychedelic was going to be like, on a real, straight pop level." You can hear the DNA of Beatles songs like "Good Morning Good Morning" in the wild sound effects pileup of "Wars of Armageddon." listen to full track FULL TRACK Before 'Wars of Armageddon' (1968) play A Saucerful of Secrets Pink Floyd Said Clinton in his autobiography, "When you went to parties, someone would put on Cream's 'White Room' or Pink Floyd's 'A Saucerful of Secrets' and then you would do acid, and when you came back from your trip, the same record would be playing. It was the new jazz and also a kind of dance music for the mind." Indeed, the 11-minute title track to Floyd's second album was an odyssey, full of guitar noise, jagged shards of piano, alien noises and mournful organ. listen to full track FULL TRACK play Wars of Armageddon Funkadelic The closing freakout of "Maggot Brain" is, in short, a bad trip. For nearly 10 minutes, Funkadelic rides a loose groove while surrounded by a maelstrom of noises: explosions, gunshots, sirens, planes, trains, screams, crying babies, laughing crowds, cuckoo clocks, cows, flatulence and heartbeats, painting the apocalypse like a Tex Avery cartoon. listen to full track FULL TRACK After 'Wars of Armageddon' (1972) play Black Satin Miles Davis After seeing Funkadelic in Boston, the jazz legend Miles Davis poached the drummer Ramon "Tiki" Fulwood for his own band -- and supposedly had eyes on Worrell, too. Deep into his "electric" period, Davis had embarked on dizzying albums like "On the Corner," his own collision of stomping funk, frenzied improvisation and Stockhausen-influenced electroacoustic experiments. Said Clinton, "When Davis steals your drummer, you know you're doing something right." Critically drubbed when released, the LP's noise-funk-jazz-dub ended up foreshadowing much of electronic music, avant-jazz and experimental rock. listen to full track FULL TRACK After 'Wars of Armageddon' (1978) play Fodderstompf Public Image Ltd. The influential post-punk of the British band Public Image Ltd. was steeped in many of the elements that made "Maggot Brain" so powerful: funky grooves, repetition, studio effects and a snarky attitude. The bassist Jah Wobble described this closer to its debut album as being "as mental as Funkadelic," and it certainly captures the collective's penchant for cartoon voices and bodily functions. listen to full track FULL TRACK After 'Wars of Armageddon' (1985) play Freaky Styley Red Hot Chili Peppers On their funkiest album, the young Red Hot Chili Peppers stayed and played in the Michigan home of the album's producer, Clinton, who provided the indelible hook to this track. The divebombing guitar of Hillel Slovak is pure "Maggot Brain." listen to full track FULL TRACK After 'Wars of Armageddon' (2000) play Stankonia (Stanklove) Outkast featuring Big Rube amd Sleepy Brown The hip-hop space travelers in Outkast closed their 2000 masterwork, "Stankonia," with this trippy mix of the sexy and haunting. The group transformed the sound and look of hip-hop itself using many Clinton-esque tactics: wigs, guitar solos, Afrofuturism and the occasional collaboration with George himself. "That album blew my mind. It made me want to learn to play guitar, and its huge range of styles -- funk, bluegrass, country, opera -- helped build our sound," Outkast's Andre 3000 told The Guardian about "Maggot Brain." "Everyone was doing funk back then, but nobody has ever sounded like Funkadelic." listen to full track FULL TRACK Listen to the playlist Related Articles related article thumbnail Before & After 'The Marshall Mathers LP' By Charles Aaron related article thumbnail Before & After 'The Black Parade' By Christopher R. Weingarten related article thumbnail Before & After 'The B-52's' By Christopher R. Weingarten Edited by Caryn Ganz Advertisement Edited by Caryn Ganz * * * * * Advertisement Continue reading the main story Site Index Site Information Navigation * (c) 2021 The New York Times Company * NYTCo * Contact Us * Accessibility * Work with us * Advertise * T Brand Studio * Your Ad Choices * Privacy Policy * Terms of Service * Terms of Sale * Site Map * Canada * International * Help * Subscriptions