Jade Live Show Analysis: The Music World's Quirkiest Artist Rises Above TV-Created Origins

Harry Styles aside, individual artistic journeys of former members of televised singing competition groups 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 featuring a cameo by an US hip-hop artist, or a lunge towards “grownup” Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they usually amount to a dimly remembered placeholder, the visual and auditory experience of someone gamely killing time prior to the unavoidable band comeback concerts.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She’s certainly not above engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are known for undertaking, including emphatically stating that she’s no longer subject the press-managed restrictions of the factory-produced music business – based on tonight’s crowd, the top-selling product on the merchandise stall is a fan emblazoned with the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from the track Gossip, her collaboration with dance duo the group Confidence Man – but regardless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than usual.

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, jarring and disjointed mixture of big pop balladry, loud electronic instruments and audio excerpts from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

During the performance on her first solo tour demonstrates, not every song on her first full-length release That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as her debut single: the track Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it's equally typical dancefloor-oriented pop, powered by precisely the Motown musical snippet the name implies; things are padded out with a cover of Madonna’s Frozen that devolves into a musical compilation of nineties club anthems, from 808’s Pacific State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

Additional Fascinating Content

However, there exists additional material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with verses that offer a borderline atonal style of rhythmic music or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She dedicates the track Unconditional to her mother: it features a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs combined with metallic pounding beats. The song IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the musical aesthetic of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was strongly inspired by electroclash, while Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic presence: she declares, she announces at one point, “shaking like a shitting dog”; giving a shoutout to her queer audience members, who are present in large numbers, she proposes showing appreciation by adding a branded jockstrap to the merch stand.

Future Possibilities

It may well end the way these kind of solo careers typically finish – the hostility towards former bandmate her previous colleague Jesy Nelson voiced within Natural at Disaster resolved, a press conference to declare that the original group are back – but the reality that the entire audience seem to be knowing every lyric as they join in vocally to an album that only came out a month ago makes you wonder. And should it occur, 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 Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester this evening and is touring the UK until 23 October.