Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Blender
Christgau's Record Guide	B+
Encyclopedia of Popular Music
MusicHound Rock	4.5/5
Pitchfork	9.4/10
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
Spin Alternative Record Guide	10/10
Tiny Mix Tapes	4.5/5
Uncut

Maggot Brain is the third studio album by the American funk band Funkadelic. It was recorded at Universal Studios in Detroit during late 1970 and early 1971, before being released in July 1971 by Westbound Records. Shortly after Maggot Brain was recorded, Tawl Ross, Eddie Hazel, Billy Nelson, and Tiki Fulwood left the band for various reasons.

In a contemporary review for Rolling Stone, Vince Aletti deemed Maggot Brain a collection of competently performed but uninteresting and lyrically-thin funk songs, bookended by an exceptional title track and the "mindless" closer "Wars of Armageddon". He was particularly critical of the record's second side, panning it as "dead-end stuff".Robert Christgau was more enthusiastic in a retrospective review for Blender, calling the last track "Funkadelic's most incendiary freak-out ever" and the culmination of shorter songs on the album that were "heavy with bass, keyboard and class consciousness". "And for once, all three bonus tracks are plusses", he wrote regarding its CD reissue. Music historian Bob Gulla hailed it as an "iconoclastic funk-rock" record, featuring the best guitar playing of Eddie Hazel's career. According to The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Rock History (2006), Maggot Brain and Funkadelic's previous two albums "created a whole new kind of psychedelic rock with a dance groove".

In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked Maggot Brain number 486 on the magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.Pitchfork named it the 17th best album of the 1970s. The record was also listed in the music reference book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

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