Jade Review: Pop's Quirkiest Star Transcends Manufactured Origins

Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of former members of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the audience's attention. They usually follow predictable patterns – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least a track including a cameo by an US hip-hop artist, 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 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 thus far followed by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that ex-reality TV group artists are wont to do, including loudly underlining that she's free from the media-trained constraints of the factory-produced music business – judging by the audience this evening, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a handheld cooling device displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from Gossip, her musical partnership with electronic pair the group Confidence Man – but regardless, the music she’s opted to make is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than usual.

An Impressive First Single

She opened her solo account with last year’s superb Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jarring and fragmented mixture of grand emotional pop songs, noisy synthesisers and audio excerpts from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

During the performance on her first solo tour proves, not every song on her first full-length release her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as that: Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it’s also standard-issue disco pop, driven by precisely the Supremes sample its title suggests; the show is extended with a cover of the Madonna classic Frozen that transforms into a medley of nineties club anthems, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

Additional Fascinating Content

However, there exists additional material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. The song Headache combines an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections that offer a borderline atonal style of rhythmic music or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She dedicates the track Unconditional to her mum: it has a fabulous melody, eighties-style electronic percussion, and powerful guitar riffs allied to clanging industrial drums. The song IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the sound of early 00s electroclash, or more accurately the exciting variation of early 00s pop that was strongly inspired by the electroclash genre, while Natural at Disaster starts out like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The woman at its centre is a hugely appealing, delightfully authentic presence: she is, she announces at a certain moment, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are here in force, she proposes showing appreciation by including a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

What Lies Ahead

It could conclude the manner such individual artistic pursuits end – the enmity towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson voiced within Natural at Disaster patched up, a press conference to declare that Little Mix are back – but the reality that the entire audience appear word-perfect as they sing along to an album that only came out a month ago causes one to ponder. And even if it does, the final Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Jade's individual musical path is unlikely to recede into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.

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