Review: AJ Finney “My Brain Don’t Work No Good”

AJ Finney’s My Brain Don’t Work No Good is an animated and random ride. Despite the album’s title, Finney’s brain obviously works well, piecing together anecdotes of random knowledge about “Chubaka,” Vicodin, canoe trips, music festivals, ugly women, hernias, and unicorns. These sound like interesting topics, no?

Or maybe you take a listen to the album and you’re confused, finding Finney disgusting as he goes on and on about his groin hernia. He doesn’t seem to care, though. In fact, he insists, “Some of you are having are a hard time picturing the visual, so don’t worry, I’ma help you!” He then goes on to reference the movie Gremlins. See what I’m getting at?

His delivery is not necessarily refreshing, but definitely invigorating, like those weird body washes say, and I mean that in a good way. A most memorable segue during the album is when he finishes a bit, pauses, and begins, “The hardest part about killing a unicorn is sobering up after about three days and trying to explain to your neighbor why you’ve been shooting arrows through his motorcycle.” The almost ridiculous statements that carry along Finney’s set are both entertaining and thought provoking, causing his audience to stop for a moment and say, what? For this reason, Finney follows up with, “everyone get it that’s gonna get it?”

Though I laughed at the latter question, Finney is, in result, telling his audience that he just told a joke, and he does so during other moments of the album as well. While this may not affect most comic scenarios, I think that it does take the magic away from Finney’s awesome storytelling prowess. Instead of the audience remaining in the magical moment of an interesting and potentially shocking story, they are brought to think, “Oh, where’s the punch line? When do I ‘get it?’”

Nonetheless, my small moment of criticism should not be the main take away from Finney’s hilarious album. My Brain Don’t Work No Good is an album that I urged my friend to listen to on the train while heading home from work. Finney’s “antics” are certainly clever / funny and natural enough to think, Hey, this guy’s legit pretty nuts. I’m looking forward to his next release and hope to encourage that.