Jade Thirlwall Live Show Analysis: Pop's Most Unique Star Transcends Manufactured Past
Harry Styles aside, individual artistic journeys of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the public imagination. These efforts typically adhere to certain rules – either an attempt at a more edgy urban music style, complete with at least a track including a cameo by an US hip-hop artist, or a lunge towards mature mainstream-approved polished adult contemporary – and they usually amount to a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time prior to the unavoidable band comeback concerts.
A Unique Journey
It’s a state of affairs 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, including emphatically stating that she’s no longer subject the press-managed restrictions of the manufactured pop industry – judging by the audience this evening, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a fan displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from the track Gossip, her musical partnership with dance duo 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 last year’s superb her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jolting and disjointed melange of big pop balladry, noisy synthesisers and audio excerpts from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.
During the performance on her first solo tour proves, not everything on her first full-length release That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as that: the track Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, driven by precisely the Motown musical snippet its title suggests; things are padded out with a cover of the Madonna classic Frozen that transforms into a medley 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 combines an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections that present a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are surrounded with deep reverberation. She dedicates Unconditional to her mother: it features a fabulous melody, early 80s syndrums, and crashing rock guitar combined with metallic pounding beats. The song IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or more accurately the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was heavily influenced by the electroclash genre, while the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad before unexpectedly swerving into a dark computerized noise.
An Appealing Presence
The woman at its centre is a hugely appealing, delightfully authentic presence: she declares, she announces at a certain moment, “trembling uncontrollably”; giving a shoutout to her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are here in force, she proposes showing appreciation by including a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.
Future Possibilities
It may well end the way such individual artistic pursuits end – the enmity towards former bandmate her previous colleague Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to declare that the original group are reunited – but the reality that every attendee seem to be knowing every lyric as they join in vocally to an album that was released just a few weeks prior causes one to ponder. And even if it does, 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 this evening and is touring the UK through October 23rd.
