Jade Thirlwall Review: The Music World's Most Unique Artist Transcends Manufactured Origins
Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of ex-participants of televised singing competition groups seldom grip the audience's attention. They usually follow certain rules – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, replete with at least one single including a guest appearance by an American rapper, or a move into mature mainstream-approved smooth pop-rock territory – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time before the inevitable reunion tour.
A Unique Journey
This common scenario that renders the unconventional route currently taken by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She’s certainly not above doing the kind of things that former talent show band members are known for undertaking, among them loudly underlining that she’s no longer subject the media-trained constraints of the manufactured pop industry – based on the audience this evening, the most popular item on the official goods stand is a fan displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from Gossip, her musical partnership with electronic pair the group Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop music with a far more fascinating style than usual.
An Impressive First Single
She opened her solo account with the previous year's excellent Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jolting and disjointed mixture of big pop balladry, loud electronic instruments and audio excerpts from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.
During the performance on her initial individual concert series proves, not everything on her debut album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as that: the track Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it’s also typical dancefloor-oriented pop, powered by precisely the Supremes sample the name implies; the show is extended with a cover of the Madonna classic Frozen that devolves into a medley of nineties club anthems, from 808’s Pacific State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.
Additional Fascinating Content
But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. Headache combines an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections that present a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She dedicates Unconditional to her mum: it has a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar combined with clanging industrial drums. The song IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the thrilling strain of millennium-era popular music that was heavily influenced by the electroclash genre, while the track Natural at Disaster begins like a piano ballad 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 one point, “shaking like a shitting dog”; 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.
What Lies Ahead
It could conclude the manner such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the enmity towards ex-group member her previous colleague Jesy Nelson voiced within Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to declare that Little Mix are reunited – but the reality that every attendee appear knowing every lyric as they join in vocally to an album that was released just a few weeks prior makes you wonder. And even if it does, the closing 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 the city of Manchester tonight and is traveling across the United Kingdom until 23 October.
