Jade Thirlwall Review: The Music World's Most Unique Artist Rises Above Manufactured Past
Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands rarely capture the audience's attention. They usually follow predictable patterns – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least one single including a cameo by an US hip-hop artist, or a move into “grownup” Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they usually amount to a dimly remembered placeholder, the sight and sound of someone enthusiastically passing the years prior to the unavoidable reunion tour.
A Unique Journey
This common scenario that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that former talent show band members are wont to do, among them loudly underlining that she’s no longer subject the media-trained constraints of the manufactured pop industry – judging by tonight’s crowd, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a handheld cooling device emblazoned with the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her musical partnership with dance duo the group Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the music she’s opted to make is pop music with a far more fascinating style than usual.
An Impressive First Single
She opened her solo account with last year’s superb Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jolting and disjointed melange of big pop balladry, loud electronic instruments and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.
During the performance on her first solo tour proves, not everything on her first full-length release That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as that: Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it's equally typical dancefloor-oriented pop, powered 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 Set You Free by N-Trance.
Additional Fascinating Content
However, there exists additional where Angel Of My Dreams came from. The song Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with verses that present a borderline atonal style of rhythmic music or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She dedicates the track Unconditional to her mum: it features a fabulous melody, eighties-style electronic percussion, and powerful guitar riffs allied to metallic pounding beats. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the thrilling strain of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by the electroclash genre, while the track Natural at Disaster begins like a piano ballad before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.
A Charming Performer
The woman at its centre is a immensely likable, cheerily unvarnished figure: she is, she states at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; giving a shoutout to her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she proposes showing appreciation by adding a branded jockstrap to the merch stand.
Future Possibilities
It could conclude the way these kind of solo careers typically finish – the enmity towards former bandmate her previous colleague Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a press conference to declare that Little Mix are reunited – but the fact that the entire audience appear knowing every lyric as they join in vocally to an album that was released just a month ago causes one to ponder. And even if it does, the closing Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Jade's individual musical path is not destined to fade into the realms of the barely recalled interim project.
Jade performs at the O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester this evening and is traveling across the United Kingdom through October 23rd.
