🔗 Share this article

Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of former members of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the audience's attention. They usually follow certain rules – either an attempt at a more edgy urban music style, replete with at least one single featuring a guest appearance by an American rapper, or a lunge towards “grownup” Radio 2-friendly smooth pop-rock territory – and they typically become a dimly remembered placeholder, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time before the inevitable reunion tour.

A Unique Journey

This common scenario that makes the idiosyncratic path thus far followed by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She’s certainly not above engaging in the typical activities that ex-reality TV group artists are known for undertaking, including loudly underlining that she’s no longer subject the press-managed restrictions of the manufactured pop industry – judging by the audience this evening, the top-selling product on the merchandise stall is a handheld cooling device displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair the group Confidence Man – but regardless, the music she’s opted to make is pop music with a far more fascinating style than usual.

An Impressive First Single

She launched her individual career with last year’s superb Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jarring and fragmented mixture of big pop balladry, loud electronic instruments and audio excerpts from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

As the set on her first solo tour demonstrates, not everything on her debut album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as that: the track Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it’s also standard-issue disco pop, powered by precisely the Supremes sample its title suggests; the show is extended with a cover of Madonna’s Frozen that transforms into a musical compilation of 90s dance hits, from the track Pacific State by 808 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 catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections that present a nearly discordant brand of funk or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She dedicates Unconditional to her mother: it has a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar allied to clanging industrial drums. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the sound of early 00s electroclash, or rather the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was heavily influenced by the electroclash genre, while the track Natural at Disaster begins like a keyboard-led emotional song before suddenly shifting into a malevolent electronic grind.

A Charming Performer

The woman at its centre is a hugely appealing, cheerily unvarnished presence: she declares, she states at a certain moment, “trembling uncontrollably”; giving a shoutout to her queer audience members, who are present in large numbers, she suggests showing appreciation by including a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It could conclude the manner such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the hostility towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson voiced within Natural at Disaster patched up, a media announcement to declare that Little Mix are back – but the fact that every attendee appear knowing every lyric as they join in vocally to an album that only came out a month ago causes one to ponder. And should it occur, the closing Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Thirlwall’s solo career is not destined to fade into the realms of the dimly remembered placeholder.

• Jade performs at the O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester tonight and is traveling across the United Kingdom through October 23rd.