🔗 Share this article

Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands rarely capture the public imagination. These efforts typically adhere to certain rules – either an attempt at a more edgy urban music style, complete with at least one single featuring a cameo by an American rapper, or a move into “grownup” Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time prior to the unavoidable reunion tour.

A Unique Journey

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route currently taken by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She’s certainly not above engaging in the typical activities that ex-reality TV group artists are wont to do, among them emphatically stating that she's free from the press-managed restrictions of the factory-produced music business – judging by tonight’s crowd, the top-selling product on the merchandise stall is a fan displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from the track Gossip, her musical partnership with dance duo the group Confidence Man – but regardless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop music with a far more fascinating style than usual.

A Superb Debut

She opened her solo account with the previous year's excellent her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jolting and fragmented melange of big pop balladry, loud electronic instruments and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

During the performance on her first solo tour demonstrates, not everything on her debut album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as her debut single: the track Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it’s also typical dancefloor-oriented pop, driven by precisely the Supremes sample the name implies; things are padded out with a interpretation of the Madonna classic Frozen that devolves into a medley of nineties club anthems, from 808’s Pacific State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

Additional Fascinating Content

However, there exists additional where Angel Of My Dreams came from. Headache combines an Abba-esque chorus with verses that offer a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are enfolded by cavernous echo. She dedicates Unconditional to her mum: it has a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and crashing rock guitar allied to metallic pounding beats. The song IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the sound of early 00s electroclash, or more accurately the thrilling strain of millennium-era popular music that was heavily influenced by the electroclash genre, while the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a dark computerized noise.

A Charming Performer

The woman at its centre is a immensely likable, cheerily unvarnished figure: she is, she announces at one point, “shaking like a shitting dog”; giving a shoutout to her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she proposes showing appreciation by adding a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It may well end the way these kind of solo careers end – the enmity towards ex-group member Jesy Nelson expressed in Natural at Disaster patched up, a media announcement to declare that the original group are back – but the fact that the entire audience appear knowing every lyric as they sing along to an album that was released just a few weeks prior makes you wonder. And even if it does, the closing Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Thirlwall’s solo career is not destined to fade into the domain of the barely recalled interim project.

• Jade plays the Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester this evening and is traveling across the United Kingdom until 23 October.