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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Is this where Hendrix may have gone?, March 1, 2008
Musicologists love to debate where Jimi Hendrix may have ventured had he not tragically died in 1970. It is true the master was going to work with Miles Davis, and that would have been monumental. It is worth exploring the possibilities of a foray into the newly developing funk scene as well, and nobody came closer to carrying on the Hendrix legacy than Funkadelic's guitar wizard Eddie Hazel, a true contemporary of Hendrix and Jeff Beck. Unfortunately, he has not enjoyed the mass appreciation of other guitar gods, and that's a crime.
"Maggot Brain" opens with the title track, a simple rhythm guitar backing Hazel in a ten minute opus that belongs in the rock god pantheon. George Clinton wisely lets Hazel shine, knowing genius when he hears it. If "Maggot Brain" isn't enough, Hazel soars throughout, welding funk with metal and making it work. It makes you wanna boogie and play air guitar at the same time, which would look really stupid, but that just proves how well the two styles of hard rock and funk can work together.
As with great jazz musicians like Wes Montgomery, John Coltrane and Charlie Christian, to name a few, it's a shame more young black musicians aren't interested in making real music, preferring instead to rap over minimalist backgrounds and completely ignore their musical ancestry that invented blues, rock and roll, and jazz. "Maggot Brain" belongs in every collection.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not as popular as it should be., September 22, 2007
This is one of those albums everyone eventually stumbles upon sooner or later. What I don't understand is why it actually takes some digging around to discover. Yeah, you'll find every music magazine in the world raving about Eddie Hazel's amazing guitar work, yet in the world of the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Sly & The Family Stone, etc., this one unjustifiably manages to slip through the cracks again and again with younger audiences. Ask any teenager whose top five consists of the Beatles, Led Zep, Floyd, the Who and the Stones who Eddie Hazel was and, 9 out of 10 times, you'll get blank stares. It's not right, I tell you! This album should be standard listening!
Okay, enough of that. It's not just Eddie's guitar chops that make this album what it is. It's also the tight band and spacey grooves that will have you coming back again and again. There is nothing boring about this record. It should also be noted that the song "Super Stupid" had it's own little effect on the development of what the world would eventually come to know as heavy metal(!).
Get it. Dig it. Play it again.
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14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Interpsychestellar funk., January 28, 2006
If Hawkwind had listened to nothing but Herbie Hancock's Blue Note records, then I have a hunch that they would've sounded like Funkadelic or like Miles Davis, ca. 1975. Either way, they would have been just as good -- only much, much different. But the differences between heavy Funkadelic and electric Miles are not that many or that great. The point is that Funkadelic cherry-picks elements from rock, funk, jazz, heavy metal, and space rock, and they do so very, very well. Unlike records that simply sample a diverse number of styles or genres, this record seemlessly combines, mixes, and matches those genres. The end result is a wonder to behold, and so this record should appeal to many people with different musical tastes. If the Jimi Hendrix Experience had covered CAN, then they would have sounded like this. Soul music meets Krautrock. While that may sound contrived, it's not so difficult to imagine how sensuous would be just such a sound.
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