Jade Thirlwall Review: The Music World's Most Unique Artist Rises Above TV-Created Past

With the exception of Harry Styles, the solo careers of former members of TV talent show-manufactured bands rarely capture the public imagination. They usually follow predictable patterns – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least one single featuring a cameo by an American rapper, or a move into “grownup” Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the visual and auditory experience of someone enthusiastically passing the years before the inevitable reunion tour.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that makes the idiosyncratic path thus far followed by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are known for undertaking, among them emphatically stating that she’s no longer subject the press-managed restrictions of the manufactured pop industry – based on tonight’s crowd, the most popular item on the official goods stand is a handheld cooling device displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from the track Gossip, her musical partnership with dance duo Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop music with a far more fascinating style than the norm.

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, jolting and fragmented mixture of big pop balladry, noisy synthesisers and audio excerpts from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

During the performance 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 its title suggests; things are padded out with a interpretation of Madonna’s Frozen that devolves into a medley of nineties club anthems, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

Additional Fascinating Content

But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. The song Headache melds an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that offer a borderline atonal brand of funk or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She dedicates Unconditional to her mum: it features a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and crashing rock guitar combined with clanging industrial drums. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or rather the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was heavily influenced by electroclash, while Natural at Disaster begins like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a hugely appealing, delightfully authentic presence: she is, she announces at one point, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are present in large numbers, 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 typically finish – the hostility towards former bandmate her previous colleague Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to announce that Little Mix are reunited – but the fact that the entire audience seem to be knowing every lyric as they sing along to a record that was released just a month ago makes you wonder. And even if it does, the final performance of Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Jade's individual musical path is unlikely to recede into the realms of the dimly remembered placeholder.

• Jade performs at the Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester this evening and is touring the UK through October 23rd.