Jade Review: Pop's Quirkiest Artist Rises Above Manufactured Past
With the exception of Harry Styles, individual artistic journeys of ex-participants of televised singing competition groups seldom grip the public imagination. They usually follow certain rules – often a pursuit at a more edgy urban music style, complete with at least one single featuring a guest appearance by an American rapper, or a lunge towards “grownup” mainstream-approved smooth pop-rock territory – and they usually amount to a dimly remembered placeholder, the visual and auditory experience of someone gamely killing time before the inevitable band comeback concerts.
A Unique Journey
This common scenario 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, including emphatically stating that she's free from the press-managed restrictions of the factory-produced music business – based on tonight’s crowd, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a fan displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from the track Gossip, her musical partnership with electronic pair Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than usual.
A Superb Debut
She launched her individual career with last year’s superb Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jarring and disjointed melange of big pop balladry, noisy synthesisers and samples from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.
During the performance on her initial individual concert series proves, not everything on her first full-length release her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as her debut single: the track Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it's equally typical dancefloor-oriented pop, driven by exactly the Supremes sample its title suggests; things are padded out with a interpretation of the Madonna classic Frozen that transforms into a medley of nineties club anthems, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.
More Intriguing Material
However, there exists additional material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. Headache combines an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that present a borderline atonal style of rhythmic music or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She offers Unconditional to her mum: it has a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs allied to clanging industrial drums. IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or rather the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by the electroclash genre, while the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.
A Charming Performer
The woman at its centre is a hugely appealing, delightfully authentic presence: she is, she announces at a certain moment, “trembling uncontrollably”; giving a shoutout to her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she suggests showing appreciation by including a branded jockstrap to the merch stand.
Future Possibilities
It could conclude the manner such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the enmity towards ex-group member her previous colleague Jesy Nelson voiced within Natural at Disaster resolved, a press conference to announce that Little Mix are reunited – but the reality that the entire audience appear knowing every lyric as they sing along to a record that only came out a month ago makes you wonder. And even if it does, the closing performance of Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Jade's individual musical path is unlikely to recede into the realms of the barely recalled interim project.
Jade performs at the Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester tonight and is touring the UK through October 23rd.
