🔗 Share this article

With the exception of Harry Styles, individual artistic journeys of former members of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the audience's attention. These efforts typically adhere to certain rules – either an attempt at a more edgy urban music style, complete with at least a track including a guest appearance by an US hip-hop artist, or a lunge towards mature Radio 2-friendly smooth pop-rock territory – and they usually amount to a dimly remembered placeholder, the sight and sound of someone enthusiastically passing the years prior to the unavoidable band comeback concerts.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that ex-reality TV group artists are wont to do, including emphatically stating that she’s no longer subject the press-managed restrictions of the factory-produced music business – based on the audience this evening, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a fan emblazoned with the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from the track Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair the group Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop music with a far more fascinating style than the norm.

An Impressive First Single

She opened her solo account with the previous year's excellent her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jolting and disjointed melange of grand emotional pop songs, noisy synthesisers and samples from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

As the set on her initial individual concert series proves, not every song on her first full-length release her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as her debut single: Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it’s also typical dancefloor-oriented pop, powered by precisely the Motown musical snippet the name implies; the show is extended with a interpretation of the Madonna classic Frozen that devolves into a medley of nineties club anthems, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

More Intriguing Material

However, there exists additional where Angel Of My Dreams came from. The song Headache combines an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections that offer a nearly discordant brand of funk or are enfolded by cavernous echo. She dedicates the track Unconditional to her mother: it features a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar combined with clanging industrial drums. The song IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or rather the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced by the electroclash genre, while Natural at Disaster begins like a keyboard-led emotional song before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a hugely appealing, delightfully authentic figure: she declares, she states at a certain moment, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she suggests thanking them by including a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It could conclude the way such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the hostility towards ex-group member Jesy Nelson expressed in Natural at Disaster patched up, a media announcement to declare that Little Mix are reunited – but the fact that the entire audience appear knowing every lyric as they join in vocally to a record that only came out a month ago causes one to ponder. And should it occur, the final Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Jade's individual musical path is not destined to fade into the realms of the barely recalled interim project.

• Jade plays the O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester this evening and is touring the UK until 23 October.