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With the exception of Harry Styles, the solo careers of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the public imagination. They usually follow certain rules – often a pursuit at a more edgy urban music style, replete with at least a track featuring a cameo by an US hip-hop artist, or a move into “grownup” Radio 2-friendly smooth pop-rock territory – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the visual and auditory experience of someone enthusiastically passing the years prior to the unavoidable band comeback concerts.

A Unique Journey

It’s a state of affairs that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken 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 media-trained constraints of the manufactured pop industry – judging by tonight’s crowd, the top-selling product on the merchandise stall is a handheld cooling device emblazoned with the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from the track Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair the group Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the music she’s opted to make is pop music with a far more fascinating style than usual.

A Superb Debut

She opened her solo account with last year’s superb Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jarring and disjointed melange of big pop balladry, loud electronic instruments and samples from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

During the performance on her initial individual concert series proves, not everything on her first full-length release That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as her debut single: Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it’s also typical dancefloor-oriented pop, powered by exactly the Motown musical snippet the name implies; the show is extended with a interpretation of Madonna’s Frozen that devolves into a medley of nineties club anthems, from 808’s Pacific State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

Additional Fascinating Content

But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. Headache combines an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with verses that offer a borderline atonal brand of funk or are surrounded with deep reverberation. She dedicates Unconditional to her mother: it features a fabulous melody, early 80s syndrums, and crashing rock guitar combined with metallic pounding beats. The song IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or rather the thrilling strain of millennium-era popular music that was heavily influenced by the electroclash genre, while Natural at Disaster begins like a piano ballad before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.

A Charming Performer

The artist on stage is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic figure: she is, she announces at a certain moment, “trembling uncontrollably”; giving a shoutout to her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she suggests thanking them by adding a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It could conclude the manner such individual artistic pursuits end – the hostility towards ex-group member Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a press conference to announce that the original group are reunited – but the reality that every attendee appear word-perfect as they join in vocally to a record that was released just a few weeks prior causes one to ponder. 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 dimly remembered placeholder.

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