Jade Thirlwall Review: Pop's Most Unique Artist Transcends Manufactured Past
Harry Styles aside, individual artistic journeys of former members of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the public imagination. They usually follow certain rules – often a pursuit at a toughened-up R&B sound, replete with at least one single including a cameo by an US hip-hop artist, or a move into mature mainstream-approved polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the visual and auditory experience of someone enthusiastically passing the years prior to the unavoidable band comeback concerts.
A Unique Journey
It’s a state of affairs 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 ex-reality TV group artists are wont to do, among them emphatically stating that she’s no longer subject the media-trained constraints of the manufactured pop industry – judging by tonight’s crowd, the top-selling product on the merchandise stall is a fan emblazoned with the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from the track Gossip, her musical partnership with electronic pair Confidence Man – but regardless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than usual.
An Impressive First Single
She launched her individual career with the previous year's excellent her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jolting and fragmented melange of grand emotional pop songs, noisy synthesisers and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.
As the set on her first solo tour demonstrates, not every song on her first full-length release That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as that: 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 Madonna’s Frozen that devolves into a medley of nineties club anthems, from 808’s Pacific State to Set You Free by N-Trance.
More Intriguing Material
However, there exists additional where Angel Of My Dreams came from. Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with verses that offer a nearly discordant brand of funk or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She dedicates Unconditional to her mum: it features a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar allied to clanging industrial drums. The song IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the musical aesthetic of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the thrilling strain of millennium-era popular music that was heavily influenced by the electroclash genre, while Natural at Disaster starts out 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 announces at a certain moment, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are present in large numbers, she proposes thanking them by adding a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.
Future Possibilities
It could conclude the manner such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the enmity towards ex-group member her previous colleague Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to declare that the original group are back – but the fact that every attendee seem to be word-perfect as they join in vocally 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 emphasizes that Jade's individual musical path is not destined to fade into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.
Jade plays the Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester this evening and is touring the UK through October 23rd.