Jade Thirlwall Live Show Analysis: Pop's Most Unique Star Transcends TV-Created Past

With the exception of Harry Styles, the solo careers of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the public imagination. These efforts typically adhere to certain rules – often a pursuit at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least one single featuring a guest appearance by an American rapper, or a move into mature Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a dimly remembered placeholder, the visual and auditory experience of someone enthusiastically passing the years prior to the unavoidable reunion tour.

An Idiosyncratic Path

It’s a state of affairs that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that former talent show band members are wont to do, among them emphatically stating that she's free from the press-managed restrictions of the manufactured pop industry – judging by tonight’s crowd, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a fan displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from the track Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the music she’s opted to make is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than usual.

An Impressive First Single

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

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 quite as interesting as that: Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, powered by exactly the Motown musical snippet the name implies; things are padded out with a interpretation of Madonna’s Frozen that devolves into a medley of 90s dance hits, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

Additional Fascinating Content

But there’s also more material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections that present a nearly discordant brand of funk or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She dedicates the track Unconditional to her mum: it features a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs combined with clanging industrial drums. The song IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the musical aesthetic of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by the electroclash genre, while Natural at Disaster begins like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a dark computerized noise.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a immensely likable, cheerily unvarnished presence: she is, she announces at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she suggests thanking them by including a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.

What Lies Ahead

It may well end the manner these kind of solo careers 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 back – but the reality that every attendee seem to be word-perfect as they join in vocally to an album that only came out a month ago makes you wonder. And even if it does, the closing performance of Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Thirlwall’s solo career is not destined to fade into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.

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