Jade Review: Pop's Most Unique Star Transcends Manufactured Origins
With the exception of Harry Styles, individual artistic journeys of ex-participants of televised singing competition groups rarely capture the audience's attention. These efforts typically adhere to predictable patterns – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least a track including a guest appearance by an American rapper, or a move into mature mainstream-approved smooth pop-rock territory – and they typically become a dimly remembered placeholder, the visual and auditory experience of someone gamely killing time before the inevitable band comeback concerts.
A Unique Journey
It’s a state of affairs that renders the unconventional route thus far followed by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that former talent show band members are known for undertaking, among them loudly underlining that she's free from the press-managed restrictions of the manufactured pop industry – judging by the audience this evening, the top-selling product on the merchandise stall is a fan 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 of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than the norm.
A Superb Debut
She opened her solo account with the previous year's excellent Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jolting and fragmented melange of grand emotional pop songs, 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 proves, not every song on her debut album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as that: the track Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, driven by precisely the Supremes sample its title suggests; the show is extended with a cover of the Madonna classic Frozen that transforms into a musical compilation of nineties club anthems, from 808’s Pacific State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.
Additional Fascinating Content
However, there exists additional material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. The song Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with verses that offer a borderline atonal style of rhythmic music or are enfolded by cavernous echo. She dedicates the track Unconditional to her mother: it has a fabulous melody, early 80s syndrums, and crashing rock guitar allied to metallic pounding beats. The song IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the exciting variation of early 00s pop that was strongly inspired by the electroclash genre, while the track Natural at Disaster begins like a piano ballad before unexpectedly swerving into a dark computerized noise.
An Appealing Presence
The artist on stage is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic presence: she is, she states at a certain moment, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are here in force, she proposes showing appreciation by including a branded jockstrap to the merch stand.
What Lies Ahead
It may well end the way such individual artistic pursuits end – the hostility towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson expressed in Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to declare that the original group are back – 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 should it occur, the closing 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 tonight and is touring the UK until 23 October.
