Jade Thirlwall Review: The Music World's Most Unique Artist Rises Above Manufactured Past
With the exception of Harry Styles, the solo careers of ex-participants of televised singing competition groups seldom grip the public imagination. They usually follow predictable patterns – often a pursuit at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least a track featuring a cameo by an US hip-hop artist, 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 enthusiastically passing the years before the inevitable reunion tour.
A Unique Journey
It’s a state of affairs that renders the unconventional route currently taken by former Little Mix member 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 no longer subject the media-trained constraints of the manufactured pop industry – based on tonight’s crowd, the top-selling product on the merchandise stall is a handheld cooling device displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from the track Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair the group Confidence Man – but regardless, the music she’s opted to make is pop music with a far more fascinating style than the norm.
A Superb Debut
She opened her solo account with the previous year's excellent her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jolting and fragmented mixture of big pop balladry, loud electronic instruments and samples from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.
As the set on her first solo tour demonstrates, not every song on her debut album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as that: the track Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it’s also standard-issue disco pop, powered by exactly the Supremes sample the name implies; the show is extended with a cover of the Madonna classic Frozen that transforms into a medley of 90s dance hits, from 808’s Pacific State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.
More Intriguing Material
But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with verses that offer a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are enfolded by cavernous echo. She dedicates Unconditional to her mum: it has a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and powerful guitar riffs combined with clanging industrial drums. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or rather the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by electroclash, while Natural at Disaster begins like a keyboard-led emotional song before suddenly shifting into a malevolent electronic grind.
A Charming Performer
The artist on stage is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic presence: she declares, she states at one point, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she proposes showing appreciation by adding a branded jockstrap to the merch stand.
What Lies Ahead
It may well end the way such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the hostility towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson expressed in Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to declare that Little Mix are back – but the fact that every attendee appear knowing every lyric as they sing along to an album that only came out a month ago causes one to ponder. And should it occur, the closing performance of 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 Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester this evening and is touring the UK through October 23rd.
