Jade Thirlwall Review: The Music World's Most Unique Artist Transcends Manufactured Origins
With the exception of Harry Styles, 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 a track featuring a cameo by an US hip-hop artist, or a lunge towards mature Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a dimly remembered placeholder, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time prior to the unavoidable reunion tour.
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 ex-reality TV group artists are known for undertaking, among them loudly underlining that she’s no longer subject the press-managed restrictions of the manufactured pop industry – based on the audience this evening, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a handheld cooling device emblazoned with the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line 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 the norm.
A Superb Debut
She opened her solo account with last year’s superb Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jolting and fragmented melange of big pop balladry, loud electronic instruments and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.
As the set on her initial individual concert series demonstrates, not everything on her first full-length release That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as that: Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it’s also typical dancefloor-oriented pop, driven by exactly the Motown musical snippet the name implies; things are padded out with a cover of Madonna’s Frozen that devolves into a musical compilation of 90s dance hits, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.
Additional Fascinating Content
However, there exists additional where Angel Of My Dreams came from. The song Headache combines an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections that offer a nearly discordant brand of funk or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She offers the track Unconditional to her mum: it features a fabulous melody, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar allied to metallic pounding beats. The song IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or rather the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by the electroclash genre, while Natural at Disaster starts out like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a dark computerized noise.
A Charming Performer
The woman at its centre is a hugely appealing, cheerily unvarnished figure: she is, she states at one point, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are present in large numbers, she suggests showing appreciation by adding a branded jockstrap to the merch stand.
Future Possibilities
It could conclude the manner such individual artistic pursuits end – the hostility towards former bandmate her previous colleague Jesy Nelson voiced within Natural at Disaster resolved, a press conference to announce that Little Mix are back – but the reality that every attendee seem to be knowing every lyric as they sing along to an album that was released just a few weeks prior causes one to ponder. And should it occur, the final performance of Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Jade's individual musical path is not destined to fade into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.
Jade plays the O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester this evening and is touring the UK until 23 October.
