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Harry Styles aside, individual artistic journeys of former members of TV talent show-manufactured bands rarely capture the public imagination. These efforts typically adhere to certain rules – either an attempt at a more edgy urban music style, complete with at least one single including a cameo by an US hip-hop artist, or a move into mature Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they usually amount to a dimly remembered placeholder, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time before the inevitable band comeback concerts.

An Idiosyncratic Path

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 emphatically stating that she’s no longer subject the press-managed restrictions of the manufactured pop industry – judging by tonight’s crowd, the top-selling product on the merchandise stall is a fan emblazoned with the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from the track Gossip, her musical partnership with electronic pair the group Confidence Man – but regardless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop music with a far more fascinating style than usual.

A Superb Debut

She opened her solo account with the previous year's excellent Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jolting and fragmented mixture 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 initial individual concert series proves, not every song on her debut album her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as that: the track Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, driven by exactly the Supremes sample its title suggests; things are padded out with a interpretation of Madonna’s Frozen that transforms into a medley of nineties club anthems, from 808’s Pacific State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

More Intriguing Material

But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. Headache combines an Abba-esque chorus with verses that offer a borderline atonal brand of funk or are surrounded with deep reverberation. She offers Unconditional to her mother: it has a fabulous melody, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar allied to clanging industrial drums. The song 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 electroclash, while Natural at Disaster begins like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The woman at its centre is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic figure: she declares, she states at a certain moment, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she suggests showing appreciation by including a official undergarment to the merch stand.

Future Possibilities

It may well end the way these kind of solo careers end – the hostility towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to announce that Little Mix are back – but the reality that every attendee appear word-perfect as they sing along to an album that was released just a few weeks prior makes you wonder. And even if it does, the closing performance of Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Thirlwall’s solo career is unlikely to recede into the domain of the barely recalled interim project.

• Jade plays the O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester this evening and is traveling across the United Kingdom through October 23rd.