Funkadelic
Maggot Brain

The cover is eloquent. We are in deep trouble. Up to our necks. We are in 1971 but could be in 2005. The world deluded itself, tried to keep us all united, all embraced, but it didn't succeed. In the case of the Afro-American universe, the '68 attempts of those, like Sly & The Family Stone, who set themselves as a symbol for a people, to dissolve color differences, to make us feel all equal and at peace, failed within a few years. What remains of those illusions, from the time we toasted to solidarity and freedom? Tons of acids still to be consumed and incredible musical developments from every genre, from every sonic trend. And it's here that George Clinton and his loyal companions of groove and drunkenness come in.

Clinton is the last piece of the intense journey that in less than a decade led Afro-Americans from the candid soul-pop performances of Stax and Motown, through the first passions of James Brown, to the psychedelic explosions of Sly Stone and Jimi Hendrix. These last two luminaries of new music are the main inspirations of the sound of the two bands Clinton simultaneously founded, the Parliament and the Funkadelic. Superficially, the two groups resemble each other (since the musicians were almost always the same) and they aim for the same goal, which is to save the funk and even make it grow until it magnifies, deforming the insights of predecessors. It's here in this pivotal year that the surviving generations must share the heritages of those who are burning or have already burned. Symbolically, funk will divide into two, the less harsh and more malleable way for the mainstream, led by Stevie Wonder and later embraced by most black artists, and the vein of Parliament and Funkadelic, which is the more aggressive, absurd, experimentalist to the extreme. Both roads will eventually collapse by the end of the decade, but not before bringing the genre to its peak, reaching an unparalleled pinnacle of black music.

While Parliament is tasked with producing more danceable, smooth, polished, and, if you will, more friendly and precise music, the Funkadelic (Funk+Psychedelic) are the more ferocious side, often soaked in drugs, pushing more towards Hendrixian hard rock, amalgamating it with a hallucinatory vision of music and life, but not so much that it cannot be a continuous protest against the system and its contradictions. The denunciation of the world's (especially the American) alienation, mediocrity, and materialism is the leitmotif of many of the group's songs (while Parliament tends to hide political protest under an alluring hedonistic mask). "Maggot Brain", in this sense, can be one of the most exemplary albums of the formation. "Testa Bacata" can become the portrait of those we hate as well as of ourselves. It's the anger shouted when we are overwhelmed by problems and looking for someone to blame, or at least a solution. But it is not a primarily verbal rage, but rather musical. The world's inhabitants are beginning to be angry, and the old "Masters Of War" is becoming increasingly truthful. And during that historical period, perhaps blacks were the angriest of all. Forcibly inserted into a community that didn't want them, they arm themselves here like never before to dismantle every prescribed rule of soul or blues.

The song format is destroyed under the blows of wild music, apparently galloping without a target, jams lasting dozens of minutes or just a few seconds, anti-hit singles lasting three minutes, where everything provable is tried. From devastating deliria of distorted guitars and cavernous basses (courtesy of the pyrotechnic Bootsy Collins), with messages shouted like bullets, one might find oneself in trance sessions where members sing, moan, play without schemes or choruses, perhaps only with a recurring motif that repeats throughout a "song". Often there are true inner journeys, the black man post-"What's Goin'On" wants to show what he is, what he has always been, outside the glossy universe of Sam Cooke or Diana Ross. "Hit And Quit" is the black "Search And Destroy", slowed down and parodied, complete with sexy choruses from muse-choir girls (see the album art, just like the previous, mythical "Free Your Mind...And Your Ass Will Follow", with a full nude on the cover). "Can You Get To What" is folk-blues in a gospel sauce that doesn't so much evoke serenity, rather a bizarre preparation for an impending apocalypse. "Super Stupid" is hard funk at its finest: acid rock intro and then a delightfully arrogant voice shouting under heavy guitars, almost metal, and Bernie Worrell's expanded and dazed organ marking the transitions, to either excite or slow down the piece. Soon, the peculiarities of Clinton's world become clear, singer/guitarist but above all the deus ex machina of the project, aiming to create an unmistakable sound and identity, that of the "P-Funk sound" (Parliament+Funkadelic), made of a wicked irony and often full of triumphant vulgarity, which will create the substratum of the black-man of the future, made of defiance, many "bitches" to mess with, drugs, and magical last-blood jam-sessions with friends. The problem is that, by misunderstanding, what here was precisely professed only as a sarcastic reaction to the impotence of modern man to change things, has become a law, a bible for the many musical and non-musical followers of P-Funk. The Maggot Brains have multiplied and taken over.

And us? Bitter and angrier than then, we can only retreat once more to this treasure chest of intelligence, Zappaesque creativity, and curse words. We go back to listen to that magnificent title track, one of the most incredible instrumental mini-concepts ever composed in music history. George, in the intro, identifying with a newborn child of Mother Earth, exhorts himself: "I have to rise above it all or drown in my own shit". And it begins a long journey, a long walk without comments, just a slow guitar arpeggio, a very subtle and barely perceptible drum, and that solo, the voice of suffering humanity through Eddie Hazel's lead guitar (who was told: "play as if you just found out your mother died") that accompanies us, shows us our life, the soundtrack of a documentary on our loves, our tears, our jumps of joy, the evenings alone in the dark. Outside the window, the trees at sunset move slowly following this melody, and you are amazed, you did not expect this ending. "Go, go maggot brain...".