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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of former members of TV talent show-manufactured bands rarely capture 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 guest appearance by an American rapper, 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 enthusiastically passing the years before the inevitable reunion tour.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that makes the idiosyncratic path thus far followed by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that ex-reality TV group artists are known for undertaking, among them emphatically stating that she’s no longer subject the media-trained constraints of the manufactured pop industry – judging by the audience this evening, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a fan emblazoned with the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from the track Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop music with a far more fascinating style than usual.

A Superb Debut

She launched her individual career with last year’s superb her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jarring and disjointed mixture of big pop balladry, loud electronic instruments and audio excerpts from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

During the performance on her first solo tour proves, not every song on her debut album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as her debut single: the track Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, powered by exactly the Motown musical snippet the name implies; the show is extended with a interpretation 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.

More Intriguing Material

But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. The song Headache combines an Abba-esque chorus with verses that present a borderline atonal style of rhythmic music or are enfolded by cavernous echo. She dedicates Unconditional to her mum: it features a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and powerful guitar riffs combined with metallic pounding beats. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or more accurately the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was strongly inspired by electroclash, while Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

An Appealing Presence

The woman at its centre is a immensely likable, cheerily unvarnished presence: she is, she states at one point, “shaking like a shitting dog”; giving a shoutout to her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she proposes thanking them by adding a branded jockstrap to the merch stand.

Future Possibilities

It could conclude the way such individual artistic pursuits end – the enmity towards ex-group member Jesy Nelson voiced within Natural at Disaster resolved, a press conference to declare that Little Mix are back – but the fact that every attendee seem to be word-perfect as they sing along to an album that was released just a month ago causes one to ponder. And should it occur, the final performance of Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Jade's individual musical path is unlikely to recede into the realms of the dimly remembered placeholder.

• Jade plays the O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester this evening and is touring the UK through October 23rd.